• Select a paint color for your home.house image by Brett Bouwer from Fotolia.com
  
  Painting your home is a major investment, and color choices are important. The color of your home can affect how you feel as you pull into your driveway. It can also influence a buyer's opinion of a home for sale. Home color is so important that some homeowner's associations restrict color options. Homeowners must generally consider three exterior areas when choosing home colors: the body, the trim and the accents. The body is the main portion of the house. It is usually covered in siding or stucco, though you may paint brick or stone as well. The trim is the edging of the house, usually wooden. Gutters and downspouts often run along these surfaces and are usually painted to match. The accents are the shutters and door.
  
  

Traditional Choices

• Certain color combinations become favorites at different periods. Classic periods for home building in the U.S. can provide excellent options when choosing your exterior paint colors. During the Colonial period, people favored a sharp contrast between the three areas of color. A sample combination might be a deep gray body combined with sea-green trim and orange-gold accents. Deep colors marked the Arts & Crafts period. A common home might have a medium-brown body with wine trim and dark green accents. Designers in the Victorian period favored pastels and brights. Homes in this period often featured bodies and trim in two shades of the same color with a strongly contrasting accent color.
  
  

Contemporary Choices

• Modern color palettes often stress contrast. If the home is a warm tone with low saturation, like a pale peach, the accent color is usually a cool tone of heavy saturation, like deep blue. While you can use creams, grays and even other colors, most modern homes feature white trim. One of today's favorite color combinations is a yellow body and white trim with dark green, navy or wine shutters. Homes with neutral bodies, such as white, gray or tan are also common. Their accents may be pastels, like powder blue or lavender, deep colors, such as hunter green or wine, or brights such as yellow or blue. White homes are sometimes trimmed in black or dark gray to provide additional contrast.
  
  

Non-traditional Choices

• Not everyone chooses to follow tradition or to conform to current design trends. Unless restricted by regulations or ordinances, paint your home virtually any color you like. Particular areas of the country are known for distinct non-traditional color palettes. South Florida is one example. Color combinations like sea green and coral or pale turquoise and yellow are common in this part of the country. Using a color palette strongly associated with this region gives your house an individual, beach-like feel no matter where you live.