">HomeOwnerNut

The better part of the last six months of my life has been spent contemplating exterior color palettes for the house I’m building, which means I can most often be found with my iPhone camera at the ready, taking pictures of any- and everything that may offer color inspiration.

Unrelated: Have you ever noticed how perfectly the tan color of peanut butter contrasts with white bread?

It’s possible that I just need to get over it and pick a color already, but bad things can happen when you don’t think through your color choices to the appropriate degree.

For example…

Attack of the Smurf

We all love smurfs, but perhaps this is taking the love of a childhood cartoon just a bit too far.

What interests me about this is the absolute commitment it takes to paint every square inch of a house, including the flower pots on the porch, the same color. And every slat of the shutters. Have you ever painted shutters before? Second worst home improvement job ever.

So when you get past the retinal scaring, you really have to applaud the devotion of this homeowner to their color choice. And let’s all hope for their neighbors sake that fluorescent green paint doesn’t go on clearance at Home Depot any time soon.

And speaking of Home Depot…

Home Depot, I Love You

Listen, I spend as much time in the lumber aisle at Home Depot as anyone, but despite the hours of my life that have collected in the dusty corners of that big orange building, I have never felt the compulsion to pay homage to it through the color of my exterior siding.

Like a car accident by the side of the freeway, this is both horrifying and fascinating. Seriously. I can barely tear my eyes away from this picture.

Obey Your Thirst

I think they term “lymon” is actually quite appropriate here. Thank you Sprite, for coining the phrase that perfectly describes this palette.

I feel like that stop sign in the bottom right was trying to tell these homeowners something.

Good Color: Not Synonymous with Boring

I know what happened to these people, and right after the spots clear from in front of my eyes, I’ll tell you.

1.) Budget Restrictions-  The paint was free.

2.) They’re colorblind – Colorblindness affects millions of otherwise well-intentioned painters. Luckily you can cure the side effect of holy-hell-that’s-a-yellow-house by simply turning to the person next to you in the paint aisle and asking, “Is this the same color as a highlighter?” If the answer is yes, put the paint chip down.

3.) Execution FAIL – They saw a house with an unusual color choice that turned out really well and wanted to have the same funky and unique style. Because the truth is, it works for some people.

See? This home has its own funky style… and the colors work with it.

Or even a more classically appealing blue…

And there are even some versions of yellow that will actually allow people to look directly at your house without incurring any vision damage…

But only if you view it in really small pictures. Like many other things, yellow paint sounds good in theory, but is really difficult to get right in execution.

One Rule to Choosing Color

A very smart person told me this once:

Find a color you like/love/cannot-exist-without…. then go two shades lighter.