Exterior Excellence
Exteriors can be daunting and it’s no surprise - in the past they used to involve a pretty expansive knowledge of architecture and heritage colours. But these days things are a little more black and white...literally.
Tint Stylist Alexis breaks down how to nail your exterior for an enviable frontage, backage and sidage.
Tint Stylist Alexis breaks down how to nail your exterior for an enviable frontage, backage and sidage.
Day Dream
When planning an exterior makeover or refresh, it's important to have clear inspiration and end goal. Thinking about your house style, the area you live in, the garden and any features you can’t change are all key factors.
Create an image in your mind of what you might be able to achieve. Try cutting inspiration from magazines, creating mood boards on Pinterest, collecting finishes and samples or take inspo from your neighbours!
New Neutral
The modern take on exteriors is decidedly neutral. There are so many ways to approach neutral palettes and it doesn’t mean a complete lack of colour.
Current trends lean towards a black or white trim, like Doom or So Fresh and So Clean. Pair with a neutral wall in a beige, grey or meet in the middle with greige.
You can still easily play with blues, greens, yellows and blushes using this formula, so don’t be afraid of colour.
For an easy colour combo, go for tonal all whites, black or navy. To ramp things up a notch add pops of colours in areas that are accessible and easy to change - like your front door!
Abode Anatomy
While it’s not essential to know the anatomy of your house for a refresh, it does help! Words like fascia, eave, gable, flashing, frieze board and dormer can be intimidating but they can really help you when looking at other houses and deciding where to place colour on your home.
The wonderful thing is most of them will generally be painted one of two colours. Take the example below - the colours are broken down into groups. This is a straightforward approach to your exterior and you can easily swap the groupings for other neutral tones.
Roof Realness
If you’ve bought an existing home, you might inherit the roof colour and since it can be costly to refinish you may have a Tim Gunn #makeitwork moment.
No matter the finish of your roof there are complementary colours and most of them will be neutral.
Tint tip: In most cases the style of your roof was in fashion at some point so do some research to find out the colours they might have used at the time of your build.
If you are going down the refinishing route, go for something neutral so it will work well in the long run. Avoid blue and brown tones on the roof and lean towards light colours or black. Why? Because they’ll go with ANY colour you choose for your house walls down the track.
Wild Windows
One of the reasons people generally opt for a black or white windows is because they can be time consuming to paint and can be seen from inside and outside.
Ideally the windows are the same colour inside, so most people opt for black or white to avoid the time consuming task of painting. So Fresh and So Clean is a wonderful neutral option, although black can be a beautiful look too - just be sure it goes with your overall look before you crack open your paint can.
Garden Guide
When planning your palette let your garden lead the way. If your garden is already done in a particular style, research what look will work cohesively. If you’re planning a garden refresh, then take your new home colour palette into consideration when choosing plants.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. The below image is a perfect example - @victoriazschommler chose Puddle and Inner Self as a beautiful backdrop for her gumtrees and garden. Using Old School for the iron lace gives a gentle nod to the period style of her home, while creating some contrast.
Which paint goes where?
Aside from choosing the colours for your exterior project, we’ve made choosing the type of paint you need as simple as possible.
For exterior walls use Exterior Paint - Check the calculator for preparation details for your wall surface but it’s almost always best to Prep for finish and durability. And if you need to know more about durability of our products check out our lifetime warranty.
For windows, doors, pillars and anything else that will be touched use our Trim paint.
It’s that easy! If you’re ever unsure ask Customer Service at help@tintpaint.com.au in the chat bubble or on 1800 573 187.
Easy Exteriors
Hopefully that makes exteriors feel a little less intimidating but if you still need help we’re here! Our customer service team are all paint experts so reach out if you’re not sure about application or finish and if you need help putting together the perfect palette you can book an appointment with our Stylist team.