When we bought the house back in 2018, we knew right off the bat that the color had to go.
Kind of pink-ish, kind of blah. Also, the shutters had to go. We’re going mid-century modern with our house that was built in 1952 — mid-century! — and details like louvered shutters that try to make it feel colonial just weren’t going to work.
We wanted something that wouldn’t jump out into the foreground, but recede back into the trees surrounding it.
What’s more, the whole thing was flat. Everything was the same generic pinkish white, from the brick, to the stacked stone flowerbeds, the shingles, even the garage door. We looked around at a lot of places for ideas. The image at the left was one of our inspirations, a house (converted to a commercial building) in downtown Maplewood, NJ. Deep colors for exterior painting are trending!
We’ve also got some stellar things going on in the front yard that deserve a better backdrop. Like these waves of daylilies and blue hydrangeas.
Quite a show in the spring and early summer! The other thing we thought would be nice would be to distinguish the different materials by using different colors. Stripping the paint off of the brick and stacked stone was not going to happen. Too expensive, too toxic, and no guarantees that it would look good. Paint just doesn’t want to come off of those porous surfaces. We decided early on that we wanted something of that deep blue, and we played around with different shades in combination, but what we ended up with was deep blue for the shingles, medium gray for the brick, and a lighter gray for the stacked stone. Garage doors are ugly, so we went with a very dark color for that so your attention would definitely not go there. And we went with the popular pop-of-color of a bright front door. Originally we were thinking a tangerine-y shade of orange, but our painter reminded us that blue and orange are the colors of the NY Mets.
And so, along with white trim and a more interesting shade for the wrought iron railings, here we are. Ta-da!
Out Back
Our back yard is a delight. It’s the part of the property that sold us. It’s the kind of feature that you would see on an airbNb listing that would make you want to book it for the week.
I spent a long time looking for the “before” shot of the back wall of the house. I only found one, and you can see why we didn’t point the camera in that direction very often.
As E. always put it, and I had to agree, it looked like a trailer. There is a solarium window over to the left out of the frame, but it doesn’t really help because the generic white paint on everything really shows the dirt. So we wrapped the blue from the front around to the back, and hit all the trim with white. We also went with the same aqua blue back door.
And it all picks up the colors of our pillows and chair cushions! And even Luna! You’d think we planned it that way.
Credit where credit is due: Phil and his crew from Star Painting of Garwood, NJ. Here’s their Instagram, too.
This is actually the third house that Star has worked on for us. They’re super-precise, and very very professional. The guys are always a pleasure to work with. Thanks!