Deborah Snoonian, a senior editor at This Old House magazine, offered these house-color tips:
■ “Look around the neighborhood at similar houses. Take pictures of them with your smartphone.”
■ “Go to websites of different paint manufacturers. Make a Pinterest board. Collect images of houses similar to yours and similar color schemes.
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■ “Go with something that speaks to you. You see trends develop more slowly on the outside of houses.”
■ “Your exterior color has to work in the environment. Big trees might affect the way sun shines on your house, how it looks.”
■ “You don’t want to be the house on the block that stands out in a bad way: the painted-lady Victorian with lots of different color trimwork.”
■ “For the body of your house, light colors will make your house look bigger. If it is set back on a lot, light color makes it feel closer to the street. Dark colors make a house recede.”
■ “Paint swatches on your house. One-inch-by-one-inch won’t tell you anything. Paint large swatches.”
■ “We recommend two accent colors. One for things that don’t move, like trim; one for things that do, like doors.”