A definite dilemma! I’m bumping up your post and hopefully others will weigh in. What colors are you using for the window sashes and shutters? I might try something like this...

Thanks Elunia - oldhouseguy says windows should be a dark color - I have a dark green I already started painting windows upstairs on the rest of the house before I began painting the house, the project has taken me years - time and $ have been scarce.

Your design looks good - but I am not sure that you can see inside what you have painted with the green we have, we have another rectangle framed with moulding - it's white now. I will see if I can blow it up a bit so you can see my dilemma - you may have taken these into account but they are easy to miss in the photo.

are you looking for colors, or where to paint each one?

you mean something like these?

I like these Beth, thank you. I am stuck with the colors right now. My question is really about where or what to paint with the 2 colors I have - what should be yellow, what should be green given the moulding, trim and clapboards - everything white in the pictures is just primer.

the main front of the house to the right in the picture is all old peeling and going. I am using just the green and yellow you see and a dark green for window sashes that isn't visible in these pictures.

Analyze some of SF's famous "painted ladies" to help you figure it out. There are probably better pix close up if you care to google for them. There's a turet on the left one here.

Painted Ladies · More Info

I would paint the window frame and mullions the dark green, the window trim white. I would paint the corner boards and the decorative trim on the turret white not green. I would remove the shutters on the side of the house, since there is not enough room for them on all the windows and having shutters just emphasizes the window difference from the turret. I would keep the green along the roof line.

Paint all the lap siding yellow and the center of the box trim yellow.

I saw nothing on theoldhouseguy‘s website about painting windows a dark colour, just that the casing (all of the framing that contains the window sash/es) one colour and the sash/es (the part that holds the glass) another colour.

TBH I’m not a fan of so much of that light green. If it was my house I’d do similarly to houssaon’s suggestion but use even more yellow and less white. So, all the sides including the corner boards yellow. The casing of the windows white. The sashes the dark green. Perhaps pick out the edges of the framed trim sections below the windows in the light green and the flat centre portions white, or leave them yellow as in your original photo.

Hi folks - so sorry to say but all the examples above are extremely bad. It's really pretty simple. A body color a trim color (what is the trim? Everything that is not clapboard) and a dark window sash color. If your window sash is white them all your trim MUST be white. People tend to try to accent their house and really make a mess. I usually have to charge double the price to correct what people think makes their house look good. When in doubt just paint your house all white. At least you won't have any mistakes and your house can still look great and never have fear of having a clown house.

This is 100 percent incorrect!!!! Why in the world would you paint the trim one color on one part of the house and a different color on another. This will make the house appear off balance and look like a clown house. Houzz is good for some things but what I have seen most advise is completely incorrect and will have a huge negative effect on a house. All trim must be one color and there are absolutely no exceptions on your house. Please do not follow this advise unless you really do not like your neighbors or your house. You have a very nice house. All trim MUST be the white you selected. Additionally the dividers in a window are muntins NOT mullions.

My first issue is that one wall, the wall to the left on the bay window turrety thing as you look at the picture, is all "trim," if we are defining trim as everything that is not clapboards. There are no clapboards at all on that wall.

Then the wall that to the right of that, just before we get to the large front wall of the main house has some, a few sections, of clapboard, but again is mostly trim. Inside the trim there are rectangles outlined by moulding. If I were to follow some of your advice, oldhouseguy, one entire wall would be white, apart from the window sashes, one wall mostly white, and then the front of the house would be one color with the different trim.

Does this mean you think the best thing to do is just paint the entire house white - clapboards, trim and all, and then have dark window sashes? Or should they be white too?

Weirdly - perhaps it's just a coinkydink when we looked outside yesterday morning, A silvery station wagon SUV drove slowly by our house, went round the corner past us, must have turned around and then going the other direction, pulled up right across the street from us. An older gentleman was driving. He rolled down his window and then started taking pictures, or at least pointing a camera with a mega lens at our house. I went outside to talk to him, he clearly saw me and heard me and just pulled off. How creepy/rude is that.?! I know he saw and heard me. I must say it really put me off balance. I have tried to check with the town assessors to see if they sent anyone out, but I have had a good bit of contact with them over the years and usually they are super friendly.

Merriam Webster Definitions:

"mullion: a slender vertical member that forms a division between units of a window, door, or screen or is used decoratively."

"muntin: a strip separating panes of glass in a sash."

"sash: the framework in which panes of glass are set in a window or door."

I misunderstood and now I see the difference.

I would do the window sash and the muntins green.

Unfortunately, when the turret was added they made the front wall almost all trim, which is why I would do the center board yellow. Ideally it should be white. But maybe you should do them white as well, because it is what it is. It will not look as flat and uninteresting as my mock-up, since the panels are raised creating shadow lines.

I see that the fascia (the trim along the gable and the top of the turret) should be the trim color. I wonder if there is a small piece of trim that could be painted the green color much like This Old House Guy's photos where the color of the window case is repeated just under the roof line.

1895 Queen Ann · More Info

Just pick a lane. Either decide the different in materials matters less, and paint the sections that should be clapboards as if the were clapboards(so yellow), or decide the whole turret is its own entity and paint it as trim( so, white). The windows should be dark green ( not the trim, the windows). The light green should be accenting details you want accented( tiny mounding strips in the trim, right align the roofline).

Hi. There are areas on a house that are surprisingly all trim for example a bay. Could you send me a good quality photo that is about 1000 kb that shows a little more of your house than in the original photo. Can you send it through the contact us form on my website. oldhouseguy.com It is difficult to see here. I will look at it this week and I will write back here so everyone can see and I will try to explain what I can. In the email, please say you are the person from Houzz. Thanks!

Please clarify: do you mean that you can only use the mint green and butter yellow you have, without using any white?

When I read the post initially, my understanding was that the white was primer “before another winter of primer only” and the two colors involved re the turret were the green and yellow. Windows themselves were a darker green. Now, I guess I’m confused. 😆

Elunia, thank you, you understood me perfectly the first time. That is exactly what I meant. I have a little bit of dark green - which I began to paint windows/sashes with years ago and can continue to use - I think I have enough. And yes, apple_pie_butter, the only paint I have is the mint green and butter yellow, plus about 1/2 gallon of the dark green - I am hoping to keep that for my windows/sashes (including muntins).

Thanks to everyone so much for persisting. <3

So with the colors you have (yellow, mint green, but no white), this is what the house will look like.

Since you don't have white, I would paint all the trim yellow and forget about the mint green. Or just do the mint green on the window trim.

Wow - that whole turret green is certainly too much! Thank you houssaon for the illustrations and the illustration of the 2nd suggestion especially.

To everyone who has contributed their ideas, I am very grateful as I am terrible at making these kinds of decisions and easily end up picking something that I myself don't like. It's such a big project! for example I love the green. I love the yellow, but I am not convinced they go so well together - but it's what I have. Maybe one day I will be able to get white and put white all the places it should be. For now, with the pressure of winter and temps already dropping into 30's (F) at night I am desperate to get some paint on these poor neglected walls. Again thanks to everyone!

Thanks for info on what paint colors you have already. Houssaon's second illustration (mostly yellow turret with green trim) will look good. Please post an update when you are ready.

I am very impressed with your property! The colors however are pretty bad and I would normally not take on a project using these colors but it is important for people here to understand color placement. From the form you sent me it seems that you don’t like a lot of colors. A house will always look best with period and style appropriate colors. Just think of how clownish a Colonial house would look with deep Victorian colors. A Victorian house such as yours should have earth toned colors – never pastels and always a dark window sash. Your house needs to have 3 colors. A body, trim and a sash color (storm windows must match the sash). The sash color can be used as an accent. You said you wanted a dark green sash and that is a very good color but it may be difficult to find a good dark green that works with the green trim..

While color is important it is not anywhere nearly as important as color placement. While Houzz is great one must really be cautious here. Just because 100 people say to do something does not mean that is the correct thing to do. I spend most of my time not only fixing homeowner mistakes but color placement mistakes made by architects and designers.

The trim of a house plays a very important role. The trim color portrays the structure of the house and incorrect placement can make the house off balance at the least. So many people get confused with this and I understand that can happen very easily. Will be writing a book on this someday.

In the attached rendering I did there is no accenting. I would normally like to do some accenting but was not able to do any. On this house the only area that would be accented is the boarder around the panels. For your house however I would NOT accent that. The reason is the accenting would be confined to one location and you need other areas of the house to also be accented to achieve balance with a more even distribution of the accent color across the house. There is a logic to accenting and the architecture will show what can be accented. No accenting is better than to accent incorrectly. There are no other areas that can be accented on your house and that is fine. This seems to disappoint people for most people like to go accent crazy.

The attached rendering shows the correct placement of the house colors. It is actually quite simple but everybody seems to think too much into it. Notice that the vent is painted the body color. Also, gutters get painted the trim color and downspouts the color they rest against.

The following article is important for many painters have no clue on what to do so you may need to teach them. https://www.oldhouseguy.com/painting-windows/

Best of luck!

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Thank you so much! Perhaps one day when we are not so hellbent on structural needs and limited resources we will have the opportunity to use colors that are more appropriate to the house rather than what we have on hand.