A fresh coat of exterior paint is by far the best way to boost your home’s curb appeal, but how do you choose the colour or type of paint for your home? There are thousands of shades, different sheens, and different styles of paint available at home improvement stores. Here are three things to consider before selecting your exterior paint colour:

Your Home Style Matters

You might love the latest colour trend or want to go with a bold colour because it fits your personality, but the most important consideration is how that new coat of paint will look with the style of your home. When choosing a paint colour, most people overlook the architecture of their home itself, and potential buyers may have an issue with the way your home looks if the colour doesn’t compliment the architecture.

Before you choose a paint colour for your home’s exterior, be sure to carefully consider your home’s architecture. If you aren’t sure what style your home is considered, you can take a picture with your phone, and run a reverse image search on Google. This will give you hundreds of image results of homes that are similar in style to yours to help give you inspiration for choosing a colour for your own home, often colours you may never have considered before.

Check Your Local Regulations

Many homeowners are part of a local Homeowners Association (HOA). To stay on the safe side, always check with your local HOA before deciding on paint colours. Some HOA groups have strict criteria for the exterior of homes. This criteria is designed to protect home values in neighbourhoods by setting standards for things like landscaping, exterior colours and more, helping protect the neighbourhood from neighbours with outside-the-box ideas.

Failing to abide by the standards set out by the HOA can result in penalties including pricey fines for each day of non-compliance, and these fines can add up quickly.

Landscaping

Another important factor to take into consideration when choosing an exterior paint colour is your landscaping. Different exterior landscaping trends can impact the colour choices for your home. If your landscaping is mostly green or very colourful, it’s important to find a colour that compliments that style of landscaping.

One way to determine the best colour to match your landscaping is to take a colour wheel outside and evaluate the overall shade of your landscaping as a whole. For the greatest impact on curb appeal, choose a paint colour that is the opposite shade of your landscaping. For example, if your landscaping is mostly greens, try a grey paint to make your home stand out more.