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Picking exterior colors...


christinee

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How do all of you come up with the colors for your houses when the houses don't tell you what color they want to be?

My biggest fear is I pick colors on paper (paint chips) or on the computer and when I go to paint the house they don't look good on the house (like what happened with my old house I was refurnishing) and I have to redo it and run the risk of ruining the house by painting all these colors over and over.

I have a few houses I want to start (full sized and micro 1/144 scale) and I'm stumped picking colors.

Help!!!

Christine

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I am kitbashing the Garfiled, and chose my colors from Sherwin Williams historical colors selection. I have the Victorian brochure, but they also have Classical/colonial and Arts & Crafts. It is great for finding historically accurate matches for your house!

http://sherlink.sherwin.com/swapp/color_visualizer/

Matt

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First I did a little research on the "Painted Ladies" figured out a color I liked. I then cut the little picture off the side of the box my San Fran came in and took it with me to the paint store and the gentleman there was very helpful in helping me get colors in the same color family.

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If you want historical accuracy, then you've been given some great sources, and there are tons of others available at the library and on the internet that will tell you the popular colors of various periods in history. If, like me, you're just painting the house...I look around my neighborhood, or paint the house the color I wish my real house was painted, or get whimsical (like with my Purple Prose Bookstore) and paint it some outlandish color and create a story around it. It's all personal taste and what you're trying to accomplish with your houses.

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I am like Greg..I look at the local historical houses for inspiration.

I also go for colors that I like as the base and then work on complimenting colors from there. Andrew gave a great bit of advice a while ago..Get a color wheel. They help you in picking contrasting or complimenting colors.

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I use a combination of looking at houses when we travel, and also very few houses don't go ahead & tell me what colors they want. I have a further problem in that I "hear" colors, so my combinations may look strange but they sound good to me or I can't use them.

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How do all of you come up with the colors for your houses when the houses don't tell you what color they want to be?

I don't built it. I really want to build my Linfield, but it won't tell me what it wants. It's remained quiet for years. It knows it wants electricity (I usually don't), but it keeps mum on everything. So he/she (won't even tell me that) remains in the box.

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You can also try googling the kind of house you are building. For painted ladies, it's easy, if you google "painted ladies", you get hundreds of photos. When I see houses I like, I save the photo in a folder on my computer to use at a later date.

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Another good way to go is go to msn,google or some other search engine that has "images". I went to MSN the other day when a friend was looking for colors for a mini house. She had searched in books and has the whole Sherwin Williams color book of paint chips. She found nothing. I took her to MSN. Then I put in "color schemes" and clicked on "images". There are all kinds of photos of color schemes in rooms, houses and even cars. It was over 13,000 images to choose from. Sometimes it helps to look at a room or a house that is already done. My friend found several choices in just the first few pages. Now she can decide and go pick out paint to match the photo. I got into trouble just helping her. I found several rooms that I would love to reproduce in miniature........Here we go again! :thumb:

Caseymini

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Thank you for all the replies! I've bookmarked all the great sites everyone posted and found them very helpful.

Whenever I go to the hardware store or any store that has paint chips, color schemes, etc., I always pick up some. I have a big folder with a bunch of them in it but sometimes I look at them and the color schemes just don't seem to "fit" for the house. I'm thinking that it just takes time...

Christine

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