Driving myself crazy over exterior paint colors. We are in Southern California in a 1950’s stucco tract house. We have a white garage door and white windows. at first I was thinking kind of a whitegray with a darker gray trim and a pop of color on the door. So now we are thinking gray with a dark gray trim. I have been browsing Houzz, driving the neighborhood and painting scenes on the Sherwin Williams website and am worse off than when I started.
@tx5athome
Is your house surrounded by wooded, shaded, greenery area? Or do you have a wide open front yard with low water type grey and purplish type plants?
If wooded and dark greenery I would lean toward the lighter color. If lots of bright sun and low maintenance style then the dark grey combinations will be a nice contrast. The garage can be painted also to add to the color scheme
Personally prefer dark body and lighter trim but I have seen some gorgeous combinations with darker trim
Thanks CB! Front yard is small, wide open, lots of sun, grass and planters.
@tx5athome - have you tried BM web painting tool?
For stucco, if there are any hints of Tudor or Spanish Colonial Revival I’d go with darker trim, but I’d go more taupe or beige. For gray I think it always looks better with white trim.
So finally decided on SW Functional Gray with white trim and a navy blue door. Yesterday they started the prep for the hardwood floors. Today they are tiling in the bathroom. I can’t wait to see it!
SW Functional Gray was a favorite or mine and a final contender in my epic pick-the-paint swatch battle. Will look great with white trim. Good luck!
To all of you painted cabinet lovers: how do you keep the paint from peeling off highly used cabinets like the trash pullout? We managed to keep our varnished maple cabinets in near perfect shape despite using the kitchen heavily. The paint is already showing signs of wear in the cabinets in the “new” house.
They started installing our wood floors yesterday. We went with Provenza wood flooring Old World Collection Tortoise Shell and I absolutely love them (so far).
^^BunsenBurner, I hope people respond. We had our stained maple cabinets painted after 18 years of heavy use (3 kids, etc.) and now, as empty nesters, our painted cabinets are already showing signs of use and it’s just been a few months. Dh had wanted to stain them and I wanted paint…wondering if I should have gone with his preference as stain shows wear so much less than paint (apparently).
We had new quartzite slab countertops put in a few months ago and they have a 3 inch edge. I love the countertops but I realized that I can see the plywood that hangs over our peninsula where we have 3 barstools when I’m sitting on the couch. Can anyone tell me what the underside of their countertop that hangs over looks like? If edges are 1" or so, I would imagine it would just be the underside of the stone. But, since ours is 3", which was built up using plywood, it does seem to make sense but I don’t like seeing it. While I initially thought our fabricator was good, I’ve come to realize that was not really the case.
What kind of paint did you use on your cabinets? How many coats of paint did you put on?
Peeling paint is usually caused by poor surface prep.
I have no idea what prep the idiots who painted the cabinets did, unfortunately, because the cabinets were already painted when we bought the house. The contractor did a very shoddy job elsewhere, so I assume they have not done a good job with priming either. I decided that I will have someone reface my kitchen with solid maple or cherry doors rather than stripping and repainting de novo. If anyone in the greater Seattle area is contemplating a remodeling project, I know a contractor that needs to be avoided like the plague. 
But I am all ears to learn about proper prep and especially what needs to be done so the paint would not crack where wood meets other wood (shaker style cabinet doors unfortunately). Thanks!
Plywood edge showing. You can add a thin strip of molding to cover it up or you can edgeband it with some hardwood veneer.
Paint what shows a dark color?
Plywood edge is not that pretty. It can’t be sanded smoothly and painted. You have to cover it up with some smooth wood to paint or varnish.
I believe it’s the underside, visible from the sofa. On a peninsula with room for barstools, that could be a 10-12" overhang. I know painted plywood isn’t pretty. But a dark color, from the distance, can fool the eye, as opposed to the blonde plywood. At least, my thinking.
Here are some tips on finishing plywood edge:
http://designsbystudioc.com/three-ways-to-finish-the-edges-of-plywood/
On the quartz slab, she said a 3" edge. That should be a quartz edge, covering the plywood underlay edge.
This is what I was told. Plywood is required to reinforce the cabinets to support the weight of the counter if the counter is thick. The installers first build up the cabinet with plywood, the counter then gets dropped on top of plywood and apparently the plywood edge can be seen under the counter material at the edge. To mask it with counter material requires special edge fabrication - $$$$$. There was a good reason I went with a thinner counter. Those are put directly on top of the cabinets.