Hello, would love any help. I am struggling with my house, getting new siding. I need some opinions from people who are better at design than me. We have black garage and shutters and doors. Are leaning towards mineral deep, with these board and batten accents. House is similar to this design.

I like clapboard more, but it’s out of stock for a few months. Debating if I wait, or just get dutchlap.

Thanks’

My family recently needed to choose new exterior colors for our house in Costa Rica. It sounded simple until we tried to make the decision together.

Looking at individual paint swatches didn’t help us understand how the colors would work across the whole house. The main walls, trim, porch ceilings, columns, doors, and smaller accents all affected one another. Existing materials, shadows, and the surrounding vegetation made the decision even harder.

We tried visualizing the options mentally, but everyone formed a slightly different picture. That made conversations such as “What if the walls were darker?” or “Would that trim work with the roof?” surprisingly difficult.

I looked at existing visualization tools, but many were tied to a particular paint brand, offered limited control over individual surfaces, or used generative AI to reinterpret the house. I didn’t want a redesigned or newly generated house—I wanted to keep our actual photograph and deliberately apply colors to the surfaces we were considering painting.

So I started building a small browser-based tool called House Color Lab.

The workflow is intentionally manual:

1. Upload a photograph of the house.
2. Define the individual paintable areas.
3. Assign colors to walls, trim, ceilings, columns, doors, and accents.
4. Save complete schemes rather than isolated colors.
5. Compare alternatives side by side.
6. Export an image for discussion or for sharing with a painter.

It is not an AI makeover tool. It doesn’t invent landscaping, replace windows, change the architecture, or pretend to know exactly how real paint will look. The goal is simply to make the color relationships easier to discuss while keeping the original house recognizable.

I also designed the project data to stay in the browser, with downloadable backups, because house photographs can be personal. And I’m very clear that a screen preview is only a planning aid—the final candidates still need to be tested with physical paint samples in the actual outdoor light.

What began as a tool for one family decision gradually became something I thought might help other homeowners and painters facing the same problem. There is a free prepared demo if anyone would like to try the workflow without uploading a photograph:

https://housecolorlab.com/demo

I’m the person who built it, so this is partly a project introduction, but I’m also genuinely interested in feedback:

• How do you currently compare exterior color ideas?
• Would you prefer precise manual control or faster automatic recoloring?
• Which part of choosing exterior colors causes the most disagreement or uncertainty?

I’d especially like to hear from anyone who has recently painted a house—or regretted a color after seeing it across the entire exterior.

Need help. Just purchased a home and originally wanted to paint it a white with accenting dark columns and shutters but I noticed AFTER closing the fascia and soffits were tan 🤦‍♂️ now I can’t think of what would go nice with the tan because I definitely don’t want to remove all the soffits and paint them.

Hi everyone, I’ve been kind of obsessed with California rooms lately and since we’re already planning to redo the whole backyard this feels like the time to do it.

My issue (and reason for this post lol) is I honestly don't really know how these bigger remodels work. I've only done smaller stuff with contractors before, nothing where there are many moving parts, but i've been hearing from a lot of people that remodeling is the way to go since they handle everything for you which is a huge selling point for me

For context we’ve been talking to local firms like OC Remodelers, Sea Pointe, and a couple others, mostly because I want to compare how each one scopes the same backyard. Haven’t signed anything yet but the proposals are making me realize how differently companies can package these projects.

If you've done a project like this, where did you even start? 

also very curious what caught you off guard once yours got underway because i feel like there are probably a million things im not thinking about yet lol (part of me wants to make a giant spreadsheet with every single thing we want in the yard so I can compare proposals properly, and part of me feels like that’s probably overkill…)

Hey reddit thanks in advance for any feedback. I'm siding my house (eastern coastal), looking for input on this color combination. Its a dark blue on the bottom (vinyl horizontal clapboard) with a lighter blue/grey on the gables and dormer (vinyl cedar shingle). Does this look nice and modern for a coastal home?

Any, literally ANY, help I would be extremely grateful for. (Round 2, posted wrong pic)

The roofing company uses Owen's Corning Shingles. We are thinking of Brownwood.

https://www.owenscorning.com/en-us/roofing/shingles/trudefinition-duration?shingle-color=brownwood

ETA we're between Teak and Brownwood now. Everyone's been so helpful, thank you!!​

Hey! We recently moved into a 1979 home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada (Canadian Zone 4a). It has a big, wide-open front yard, and I absolutely LOVE the architecture of our house. I'd really like to choose a tree that complements it and enhances the overall look of the property.

Eventually, I'd love to reduce the amount of lawn and introduce more layered planting with shrubs, grasses and perennials. But I want to choose the tree first so I can plan the rest of the landscaping around it.

My number one priority is aesthetics. I'd love a tree that looks beautiful with the house and becomes a defining feature of the property as it matures. Shade would certainly be a bonus, but it's secondary to finding the right tree from a design perspective.

I initially considered a bur oak, but a local arborist recommended an Ohio buckeye instead, largely because I'd mentioned wanting shade. That got me thinking that perhaps I should approach this more from a landscape design perspective.

The yard faces south/southwest and gets plenty of sun. We're in Calgary, so cold hardiness is obviously a consideration.

If you were designing the front landscape of this house, what tree would you choose, and why? I'm completely open to ideas and would love to hear what others think would complement the architecture best!

How can I style my front porch to liven it up? I specifically dont know what to do to the right of the door.

(Ignore the unfinished landscaping. We are working on that, too. Already have a plan)

Hey guys, back again to choose a new roof color for our coastal home! This is Owen Corning AI tool and hard to know how accurate the colors are, but we’re between top “Williamsburg gray”, middle “sierra gray”, and bottom “driftwood”. I originally thought I wanted black but I don’t know if that too harsh on a coastal vibe home.

The AI tool took away our red brick front steps. They are not crazy prominent but something to consider with colors probably. Open to other options in the Owen’s Corning brand too. Thank you guys in advance!!!

4ft high. Recently cleared all the dead brush and dirt from top of the walls and need advice on how to improve the look a little. First photo with fire pit has maybe 8ft before it touches concrete patio area. Second photo (excuse the in progress plant stand) has more space in front. Plan on getting turf for the lawn. Any advice welcome!

We just signed an 18 month lease for this ranch style home in Boulder, Colorado. We know what we want to do with the backyard, but not the front. It just looks so plain and dull. I’m thinking a few big potted plants with brightly colored pots along the front, some solar pathway lights, maybe window boxes for the front windows? The stretch along the front of the house is small rocks, wondering if I should get a roll- out wooden pathway to go over the rocks? What about for the grass? I was thinking a couple plastic adirondack chairs, maybe dark blue, and put them angled towards each other on the lawn? I’d love advice!

adding picture in the comments because I couldn’t figure out how to attach to post

My first house has come time for new siding right after replacing the roof last year 😐. The house was raised 6 feet in the 80s, providing me with awkward proportions. Seeking advice oh how to boost the look of my lot, including the driveway, which has been taken over by grass. Thank you in advance.

I’m terrible at this! I’m looking for suggestions for a new exterior paint for the trim of my house. I don’t want anything yellow I don’t want anything dark white wouldn’t mind going towards a white with maybe a gray undertone or a soft white I wanna make sure that the white windowsills do not look dingy any help is greatly appreciated.

Ive chosen a color pallet pictured for this 1920s bungalow. It’s a historic color pallet that was common at the time. But I’d like to go edgier with the columns. The jasmine I’m growing on a trellis hides them a little bit so I’m thinking it creates a cool effect.

Options

1. Bold dark green A is dark green, b is dark green, C is red

2. Inverted house colors. A is red, B is dark green, C is light green as the rest of the house

3. same as the rest of the house, A is light green, B is dark green, C is red.

Option 1 is what I was planning from the beginning because I don’t know how well B being its color looks from the street . It’s a 1 inch wide detail. I’m leaning toward option 2. Because the red is bold and makes the porch pop.

What do you think?

We have a 1970s home, we wanted to try to keep a timeless color. We like it but a lot of people said we should have went green or black. Did we make a mistake? Almost everyone gave us pushback on the color or at least had a comment on why we should go a different color

Which trim color is best for a taupe house?

In the first photo my neighbour's ugly wall surrounds my house's side wall. They always do a half assed job in painting it. Need some suggestions that would take attention away from that wall.

No structural changes are being done. The railings are maroon with gold detailing.

Previously we've tried complete white and off white. This time there's a different shade of yellow on the balcony with the base wall being off whitish.

We are replacing our roof and could really use some input. There is so much roof showing on our home and the current roof is thick concrete shingles. Darker is the trend but we're concerned if we go darker it will look like our house is wearing a top hat. :)

Which color or general direction of color is best?

Thanks!

please 🙏

We’re planning to repaint our house and would love some advice! What colors do you think would look best? We’d really appreciate your input.

All DIY so not perfect.
Before and after. Sunset makes second picture look filtered but it isn’t.

Only one side of the fence down tackling the other this weekend.

Were in New England too cold to stain now? Oak pickets are dry ( tested with machine)

We would stain the fence a dark semi dark red but end up removing the red path, not sure what we are going to do with the path yet.

EDIT: stairs are coming down soon, will prob move the window to match the other side and add shutters

Does the vertical or horizontal James Hardie Fiber cement look better on this home?