Survey: Paint My Porch, Please

The painters are cruising along and the house is shaping up nicely.  The color is exactly what I wanted, the pale yellow of a stick of butter.  I keep seeing other yellow houses and thinking, "Nope, too bright."  Or, "Nope, too close to cream."  I'm like Goldlilocks, except it's my own house that's just right.  We have to pick a color for the porch, though, and I am looking for opinions.

I'd like something colorful but not crazy, and Elwood P. has strict ideas about what kind of colorful he finds acceptable.  "Maybe purple," I said, and he echoed, "Purple," much as if I had announced my plans to paint it myself using the adobo sauce from a can of chipotles.  Right now it is green with a fair amount of blue in it.  I am partial to the color but I'm not sure I want to keep it.

If you had a 1923 bungalow with pale yellow siding and white trim, what color would you paint your porch?

Comments

[mary]

Blue. A nice, muted blue. Sort of blue-grey. There's a house around here with just that sort of trim and I really like it.

[Mary Poppins (NOT)]

Hmmmm... I was going to say the boring white, but then paint your front door blue.

[Rosemary Grace]

I second the vote for a blue gray, I was thinking "colonial blue".

You could look for a book in the library with pictures of original colour palettes from historical houses, the ideas for colour combos are great, and there's lots of pretty pictures of old houses. (I used a book like this to pick colours to pain my dolls house when I was a kid - for some reason I wanted it to be historically accurate)

[Tracy]

I like blue, but a brighter blue. For some reason, the term lavender blue keeps coming up in my head, but that can range from a light bright blue to a purplish blue. I was not thinking purple.

What color will the door be?

I love thinking about paint colors! This site http://architecture.about.com/library/bl-color.htm seems interesting. What about rose or burgundy? I hadn't thought of those before!

[Tracy]

cornflower blue - that was the term. (I need to get to work on something, instead I'm browsing behr.com. they have a fun color thing. oops.)

[Elizabeth]

I like the blues... a lighter one for the porch and a darker one for the door. or vice versa.

[Moxie]

Greyish blue, but I'd paint the front door red.

[Summer]

Are we talking porch floor and steps, or everything, including railing and columns and what-have-you? My immediate thought, before I read the bit about the porch already being green, was a deep forest green. (Dark, but more of a yellow-based green than a blue green.) I'd do that with white for the railings and trim, and maybe if you want to get wacky, you could do the Carolina thing and paint the underside of the porch roof sky blue.

Dark purple would be cool, too. I would support your use of purple.

[Meira Voirdire]

Hmm . . . I think there's a certain green that's almost appropriate for the time period -- sort of a flat creamy sage-ish color?

But I have to admit I'm VERY intrigued by the idea of purple . . . like eggplant purple.

I guess it depends on if you want the house to stand out (purple!) or blend (greenish) . . .

[Ariella]

I would probably choose either a bright blue (think royal blue) OR maybe a spring green. But I like bright colors in unusual places, so you may be asking the wrong person. Our house is a pale yellow of the type you described, and our trim was painted a sort of blue/grey by the previous owner. It looks very nice, but doesn't really stand out.

Since you said you have a bungalow, I am totally jealous. I've always wanted a bungalow style house!

[Rosie_Kate]

Red. I'd paint it red. Not bright, sort of rusty... But definitely red.

So great to see you blogging! My favorite morning read...

[Lauren]

either a slatey-grey or a sagey-grey
It hides dirt well and it is 'historical' and it makes things look very tidy and stylish.

[Hannah]

I'm with Katie-Rose, though I'm behind on the poll...I'd do red. Maybe even brighter red.