5 Tips For Choosing Exterior Accent Colors For Visual Charm

Off-white and cream are the most popular siding colors right now. Since many colors can match these options, this gives homeowners the chance to embrace individuality in exterior accents. It's in the name: accent colors are used in small doses. But that doesn't mean they can't have a big impact on your home's exterior aesthetic. As such, choosing the right hue is challenging. Even the aforementioned white comes in an overwhelming selection of tones and shades that need careful pairing.

Thankfully, there are strategies to help you approach the task with confidence. Exterior house color ideas to make your home look more inviting include taking palette inspiration from existing architectural features — like brick walls and roof shingles — or the surrounding environment and taking neighborhood decoration guidelines, curb appeal, and professional advice into consideration. If you really don't feel confident to do things on your own, there are on and offline tools to lean on, paint manufacturers provide color matching services of one sort or another, or you can hire the services of a professional painting company or designer.

What's considered an accent on the exterior of a home? We're talking shutters, front and back doors, gutters, soffit and fascia, decking and other attached fixtures, and, of course, the currently quite popular exterior accent wall. Trim is most often painted white, followed by black and green, but don't let trends stop you from getting a bit playful with bolder colors, especially on personality-driving features like front doors. After all, it's faster and cheaper to repaint the accents on a house versus your entire home if a palette falls out of favor or you want to embrace a current trend.

Choose a color that's inside your home's existing color family from the materials you've used to build your home. Work within a two or three-color scheme — a different color each for body, trim (and accents), and shutters (if you have them). If you can see a lot of your roof from the street, you need to take roof color as your primary inspiration for your home's color scheme. For example, the roof color really matters when you're considering an accent color for your guttering. Any hue you paint this functional feature should match, blend in, or coordinate with the roof. You could pick out a color from your roof shingles.

Alternatively, determine the colors of your walls or siding — the exterior accent colors that pair beautifully with red brick, for example. Hold a full paint color deck up against the feature you're looking to match or contrast with. Then, pull your accent color — for, let's say, your trim — by picking the lightest color on the same card. In the case of a brick home, you could also get your accent color by matching the mortar to your paint cards. Let's take orange brick as another example. You could lean into the warm tones found in the brick itself or contrast it with cooler shades like blue or gray. Plus, you'll need to find a color that works as much with your roof as it does with the orange brick walls, and that's tricky if the roof is a different hue.

Are you particularly proud of your garden and landscaping? Does your home sit within forest, desert, mountain, or other distinctively-wild landscape? Use that abundant nature for accent color inspiration. Go for a saturated and warm color — the former provides depth and the latter for coziness. The warmth is especially important if you're an avid gardener because warm colors work best with plants.

An example is slate blue, which experts note highlights flowers, trees, and shrubs and complements natural materials like wood and stone. Think of your home as the backdrop for your garden rather than the other way around. Call attention to key hardscaping features — think a beautifully-arranged outdoor kitchen, fire pit, or pergola — with a bold accent wall painted in deep forest or moss green or bright canary yellow. Then, stretch that same hue through other accent features to create a cohesive aesthetic.

Consider, too, how the natural light around your home will impact how a paint color looks. Paint looks brighter outdoors than indoors (like in a paint or hardware store) and in bright sunlight versus shade or cloudy weather. Experts emphasize the importance of always choosing exterior paint colors outdoors by physically placing or painting on two-coat paint samples in various spots around your home.  Noon is the best time to do this. A general rule of thumb is to choose the hue that sits two shades down on the color chart from your favorite shade.

No matter whether your home is old or new, it likely falls into a particular architectural style with unique accent traditions. Colonial-style homes often feature a gray, white, and red palette. Dark green accents are common on Arts-and-Crafts homes. Choose deep colors inspired by nature for Craftsman homes and white with dark shutters for a classic Farmhouse. Organic coastal exteriors favor subdued blues, grays, and beiges. Many local historical associations offer color consultations for a fee. Some societies provide handy lists of Historic Colors of America paints organized by architectural era.

Sometimes, you don't have much choice in what you paint your exterior accents. For instance, some city guidelines state that brick shouldn't be painted over on historical homes. In the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts, historic homeowners can choose the exterior paint colors they prefer so long as they broadly adhere to the traditional aesthetic standards of the district. Some cities, like Coral Springs, Florida, require homeowners to apply for approval on exterior paint colors in advance of a renovation project.

Get inspiration by walking around your neighborhood. If you notice a strong theme, check the website of your local municipal authority to see if there's a neighborhood covenant you're encouraged to adhere to. If you're part of a Homeowners Association (HOA), read their documentation to make sure the changes you want to make are in compliance with their rules. Even if you don't need to adhere to HOA guidelines, it doesn't hurt to take neighboring color schemes into consideration. Matching what's next to you will create consistency and increase street appeal, which benefits everyone.

If you're selling your home now or even just planning to put it on the market in a few years, leaning into current exterior accent color trends isn't a bad idea where exterior accent hues are concerned. Unless you're in a very specific style of home that's traditionally adorned with bright colors (think the bright terracotta hues common to stucco homes), today's designers favor subtle and soft accent colors over garish — dark blue or charcoal siding with accents in black or burgundy is an enduringly popular combination. 

Conversely, other exterior experts suggest that painting your front door (or other accents) a bold color like fire engine red, royal blue, or grass green may make your home stand out from the crowd. Want to save time choosing hues? Embrace the monochromatic trend and paint your exterior accents in the exact same or an extremely similar color to that of your siding and roof.

Some of the regulations we mention in the section above this one — covenants and Homeowner Association guidelines in particular — are designed to help retain property values in a given area. The idea here is that while you can certainly give your home more curb appeal with vibrant and inviting exterior paint schemes, settling on colors that complement those of neighboring homes might be better received by existing residents and more appealing to potential buyers. Generally, experts recommend opting for a warm and welcoming exterior color palette, and that includes your accent hues, if you're looking to maximize curb appeal and selling potential.

House paint manufacturers are experts in providing advice on color combinations, so visit their websites, make use of any online tools they provide, or visit their stores to consult with staff. They often have pre-selected color combinations designed to take the guesswork out of the selection process. Hirshfield's, for example, offers an online exterior color consultation for a relatively reasonable fee of $99. Sherwin-Williams has a digital paint color visualizer that lets you upload and impose hues onto a photo of your home.

Painting the accents on an old home? Take a leaf from designer and Instagrammer @historicdesignconsulting, who used an authentic interactive paint selection guide from 1923 to choose the exterior palette for two Craftsman era homes. Other manual tools include artist color wheels, where complementary colors sit opposite one another and shades of a hue or analogous colors next to each other.

Full paint color charts are extremely useful but don't come cheap. For instance, a Multifunctional Color Guide with 2050 NCS Colors costs a bit over $200. Take advantage of paint samples from home improvement stores with different tones of the color you like. Continually narrow your selection down to around three options, then choose the one color that appeals to you the most from this whittled selection. Then, invest in quart or 8-ounce samples of your preferred colors and test them in inconspicuous spots around your home. Wait for them to dry and compare them in different lights before making a decision.