Front Door Colour

last year

Hi everyone, so thank you to the Houzz member who found a Romabio painter near me last year! I was finally far along enough in the outdoor projects to pick a paint colour and have the house done. Good bye dirty yellow brick. I picked a Sherwin Williams colour "Pavestone". I had always intended to paint the door a maroon/red - but now that the house is done - I'm flirting with the idea of a green door! The deck will be finished soon, with black skirting, black railings and pickets. The carport will also be trimmed in black aluminum. Next year I'm hoping to replace the windows and will consider black. Do any of these colours appeal to you or should I stick with the maroon/red?

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PRO

Lori A. Sawaya

last year

last modified: last year

If you're wanting a color of green similar to the swatches in the picture, you have to be careful about what hue family they belong to.

Because you're combining Pavestone which is a low Chroma color with a more colorful and vivid green.

It's a matter of color harmony.

Pavestone belongs to the Yellow hue family so the more chromatic green door color needs to come from about the same location in the Green-Yellow hue family.

It will be an analogous relationship.

Because when combining low chroma (some call it dirty) with cleaner, more vivid colors, it's the hue family relationship that's going to make it work.

Obviously it's not going to be Chroma because house is muted (dirty) and door is clean.

The Value (light/dark) between the two will be a matter of preference.

Closer in Value is gonna give you a more refined, sophisticated color scheme.

Contrast, different Values is going to give you a more dynamic color scheme.

Again, matter of taste/preference.

With all that said, and based on the chips in the pictures, these are the only colors of green you have to choose from - I searched every major brand.

Only PPG and Dunn-Edwards have the right greens.

Always buy your color in its home brand if you can. If you can't, there's a reasonably good odds of getting very good color matches to these colors from whatever brand you want to use; because of the kind of green they are.

Of course, everyone knows by now that color online is never the same as in real life. It totally depends on how each individual device is able to render color.

Always, always, always have to pull the chips to see what's what.

I did and personally, I like Moss Point the best.

Spanish Olive second.

Good looking combos. I like it, something different.

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Comments (13)

elcieg
last year
last modified: last year
This is S W Pave Stone. I'm not seeing that color on your house.

Anyway, black windows, black on the front deck, I would go with a black front door.
donnalorenz thanked elcieg
donnalorenz
Original Author
last year
Yup, that's the colour - in the sunlight, it appears lighter. Picking an exterior colour was the hardest thing I've ever done I think - it just kept changing depending on the weather and the sunlight, and what side of the house it was on!
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btydrvn
last year
I think all those colors would look good… the blue may be “friendlier”…warmer…but the green may be a crisper contrast with black trim..
donnalorenz thanked btydrvn
kculbers
last year
A sage green door would be a wonderful choice, and brighten up your home.
donnalorenz thanked kculbers
Rachel Lee
last year
A gray/ dusty green
donnalorenz thanked Rachel Lee
donnalorenz
Original Author
last year
Lori, fantastic information! Wow, thank you so much! I was playing around on the visualizer and came up with my final choices - based only on screen, so obviously getting chips is the next step and then a tester pot. Based on your colour lesson, I see that I'm getting closer with the greens. The inside of my house is "beachy" with light sandy colour floors, and a wonderful blue/green kitchen called "Stillwater" so I set out to find a blue too. The "Cool Avocado" was recommended as a complimentary colour to "Pavestone" by Sherwin Williams and in fact, I quite liked it too.

I really liked the greens you found Lori - although sadly those paint brands are probably not available in Canada but I will certainly check. I can get the CMYK values from the Hex codes though and that may work.
PRO
Lori A. Sawaya
last year
I can get the CMYK values from the Hex codes though and that may work.

It's easier than that. 🙂Your paint store will have their version of PPG and DE formulas in their data base.

CMYK is cyan, magenta, yellow and key ink colors. Literally the cartridges loaded into a printer. They don't correlate to paint colors at all.

Same with HEX and RGB values - they don't define or describe paint colors in any way. Instead theses values are proportional instructions for a device. They instruct a device how much of each red, green and blue channel of light it needs to light up to mimic an in real life paint color.

CIELAB values are what every paint manufacturer uses to create, make and manage colors.

It's like color DNA and it's pretty easy to get. And you can transform it into formats like hue, value, chroma that describe what a color looks like in the same way the human vision system works.

But it's color nerd kind of stuff and not widely published so not many know where paint colors actually come from or the correct way to define and describe their appearance.
donnalorenz thanked Lori A. Sawaya
donnalorenz
Original Author
last year
It's easier than that. 🙂Your paint store will have their version of PPG and DE formulas in their data base.

HOT DIGGITY! It also occurred to me that I could get the Pantone colours from the info you provided, but your way is way easier, LOL! Thanks again, your information has been invaluable.
PRO
FrameMyMirror
last year
Whoa! Totally learned something new today! I personally love the "cool avocado" or that pretty blue color. Blue is always so inviting! Seems like you have the tools to move forward! Good luck finishing your project :)
donnalorenz thanked FrameMyMirror
donnalorenz
Original Author
last year
Hi everyone! In case you were wondering.... here's the end result! Picked the blue because it flows into the colour palette on the inside, which is beachy, with light wood floors and a kitchen cabinet colour called "Still Water" which is like a Tiffany blue.

Thanks for everyone's interest and feedback!
kculbers
last year
Nice color!
donnalorenz thanked kculbers
cat_ky
last year
Love the blue. You made the right choice. Now, some porch furniture, with cushions that have that same blue in them, and it will look fabulous.
donnalorenz thanked cat_ky