If you’ve been reading for a while you know that we’ve always been a little iffy on the outside of our house. It’s a typical split-level, brick-and-vinyl-siding home built in 1962 that isn’t exactly the most exciting architecturally, but the big problem is the color: beige and evergreen, two of our least favorite colors. Blah boring boo*. From the day we moved in, we’ve been dreaming about changing the colors.

(*Some of you may love beige and evergreen, and we can still totally be friends. It’s just not for us.)

One day when our contractor was at our house about something else we said, “hey while you’re here can you give us an estimate on new siding… just for fun!” So he came back to us with estimates for hardie board and vinyl siding but also said, “since there’s nothing wrong with the vinyl siding you have, why not just paint it…”

Hold.
Your.
Horses.

Paint vinyl siding?

He then brought over an exterior painter who told us the technology in vinyl siding paint has come so far in the last few years that it’s totally safe (as long as your siding is in good shape, which ours is) and it’s a whole lot less expensive than all-new siding that we don’t even need. In the past you were warned not to paint vinyl anything darker than the original color because the increase in heat could cause the vinyl itself to warp and melt. There also were issues with the paint peeling, buckling and bubbling. Now Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore have a whole line of vinyl siding paint colors, all formulated specifically to be safe on vinyl, even some dark colors. Whoa!

We’ve decided to go for it. It’s significantly less expensive, and though it’s definitely a little scary, the worst thing that will happen is the vinyl will need to be replaced eventually. That’s a risk we’re willing to take since that’s what we thought we’d have to do in the first place.

So then the question becomes what the heck color do we paint our house?!?!

Andy and I both love the idea of navy and white. It’s crisp and modern and different from the rest of the houses on our street that are mostly all white and a couple of greys. It also seems appropriate for living near the lake. Unfortunately, Sherwin Williams doesn’t offer a navy vinyl-safe paint colors, though Benjamin Moore does (we prefer to work with SW if possible, since they’re headquartered here in Cleveland and it tends to be less expensive than BM). Another option is to paint the brick navy and the siding something lighter — but is that weird? The benefit of that is we can do ANY color on the bottom, because it’s brick. We also would be open to some shades of grey on the siding if we can’t find a blue that works.

We whipped together some quick mockups in Photoshop with a bunch of our favorite Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore vinyl-safe paint colors (forgive how wonky these are! Emphasis is on “quick”!).

SO TELL US WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE!!!

Of course we’d paint or replace the shutters, too, but I just left them the original green in these mockups, so imagine them whatever color you think would work best. These particular color combinations are only examples (SW Snowbound is what we painted most of our interior walls so it was an easy example of a white paint), so we’re not stuck with them.

We honestly haven’t made any decisions (and our painter is bugging us to decide!), so we want to hear your feedback!