50 Shades of Gray (Paint)

We've been working on finding a paint color for the exterior of the house.  While I know some people are going to see painting the cedar siding as the worst thing we could do, it is a necessity.  The previous owner didn't take care of the siding and it hasn't been sealed in at least a decade.  Because of that, the siding is now permanently discolored and rotting in a few places.  We don't have the money to replace it right now, so we're going to paint it and hope it can last 3-5 more years when we can replace it with siding.

The house before the tree came down.  All you can see is the stone.

And sans tree.  The cedar detail is nice, but the state of the wood is not.

When my totally awesome friend (and designer) Ann was up a few weeks ago, she helped me pick out some possibilities for the color.  We wanted to bring out the stone on the front of the house (which we love) and, while it is traditional for a house of this style to be painted dark brown, we knew we wanted something that would lighten up the house.

At first we tried a blue-gray color (Network Gray) and a sandy-yellow color (Blonde).  Samples were purchased, swatches were painted, and it was decided that we liked the blue-gray.  So I brought it to the front of the house and painted the trim around one widow so we could see it with the stone.  And it was kind of meh.  Also, it was very close to the color of the neighbor's house.  So back to Home Depot we went.

All the shades of gray (plus blonde).  Thank God for 8oz samples.

Five more paint samples were purchased in a variety of grays.  In order of Sherwin Williams Number (which we had color matched at Home Depot in Behr Exterior Paint) they were:  SW 7017 Dorian Gray (I wanted this one to win just for the literary factor), SW 7024 Functional Gray, SW 7031 Mega Greige, SW 7038 Tony Taupe (which means our house would have been named Tony), SW 7045 Intellectual Gray, and the original SW 7073 Network Gray.  All six were painted up on the side of the house again, and then we looked.

Our 50 Shades of Gray, in order from left to right:
Dorian, Functional, Mega Greige, Tony Taupe, Intellectual, & Network

This is the point where Landon looked at me like I was crazy and said I had purchased the same paint over and over.  I swore they were different.  In the end we decided that we liked 3, 4, & 5 the best.  For those of you keeping score at home that would be Mega Greige, Tony Taupe, and Intelligent Gray.  Those three got moved to the front of the house and painted next to the stone.

Top to bottom:  Mega,  Tony, Intellectual, Network

All three looked pretty good up next to the stone, so we decided a larger sample area as in order.  I painted as much of a window frame as I could reach with each color.  Which is when we decided to take down the tree so we could see them all better.

Can you see my colors?

See, much better.  Mega Greige (left) and Tony Taupe (right).

Intelligent Gray.

At this point we were able to rule out Tony Taupe (bye Tony!) but we were still pretty undecided on either Mega Greige (or "Pink" as Landon calls it) and Intelligent Gray (or "Green").  Saturday, it was back to Home Depot to upgrade from the samples to Quarts so we could paint half the front section one color and half the other.  We also got the appropriate trim colors for each SW 7033 Brainstorm Brown for the Mega Greige and SW 7047 Porpoise for the Intelligent Gray.  Not what you'd expect, I know, but hey, I didn't name them.

I spent all day on Sunday painting the sections of the house and the trim in the two color options.

Working on some trim.

Nearly Done.

Hmmm....

At first, in the bright sun, it was hard to see any different at all in the two colors.   They looked pretty much the same.

You did get different colors, right?

But later, as it got a bit cloudy, it was easier to see the difference.  And, the more we looked, the more we liked the left option (Mega Greige/Brainstorm Brown) the best.  Both looked good, but the warmth of the Mega Greige worked better with the red-orange roof than the cooler colors of the other option.  So, Mega Greige it is!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

And that, my friends, is our own personal 50 shades of Gray saga!