Are you looking for the perfect white paint for your home? Today we’re sharing our top 7 favorite white paint colors for exteriors.
I recently had the exterior of our house painted a new color.
Our home’s exterior is HardiPlank siding (which is an engineered fiberboard cement siding) so every 10-15 years it has to be painted.
And this is one DIY project that neither my husband Chris or I will ever attempt to tackle…we leave this one for the professionals.
After waiting for months to pick a painter to do the job it was now time for me to actually pick a paint color.
Ugh…now comes the hard part!!!
I’m so bad at making decisions like this.
What if I pick a color I don’t love?
It’s not like I can go back and repaint it.
This project was costing us thousands of dollars so the pressure was on to pick just the right color!
You can learn more about estimating the cost of painting a house’s exterior here.
I knew I wanted a white house so how hard could it be?!?
Hahaha!
And…LOL!
Seriously…Ha…ha…ha!
White is hard you guys…like really, really hard to choose.
I’m able to choose white interior paint colors pretty easily and even shared all my tips in this post.
But choosing a color for my entire house that I would have to live with for another 13 years…oh boy…I had to get this right!
Before Painting our Home’s Exterior White
I actually liked the color of my house before we painted it.
It was tan with black shutters so it was fairly neutral.
And I just LOVE the stone on the front of our home.
But…
And there’s always a but isn’t there?
I also LOVE white farmhouses.
You know the big front porch with the huge double wood doors, black window frames and cedar wood accents.
Ahh…that’s the dream!
But I really love my house too!
So, how was I going to combine my love of white farmhouses with my fairly traditional home?
Do Your Research When Choosing White Paint Colors
I hit up Pinterest to get some ideas for the best white paint colors on home exteriors.
Who knew there were so many options?
I read lots of blog posts and articles with opinions of the best white paint colors.
It helped that our painter was using Sherwin Williams paint so I focused only on colors made by that brand.
I’m not a fan of color matching and I explain why here.
After doing all my research I had narrowed it down to 7 (yup, only seven!) beautiful creamy white paint colors.
Then I headed to the paint store to pick up some sample cards of those gorgeous neutral white colors.
I laid the cards out on our kitchen table…there were only SEVEN…that’s not too bad…right?
Umm…then a bit of panic may have set in!
How on earth was I going to narrow it down from SEVEN to just ONE?
I had to pick ONE white paint color for the entire outside of our house?
I decided I should lay the paint cards against a white piece of paper instead of the warm wood tone of our kitchen table.
And wow did that make a difference!
They all looked more tan than white now.
That made me a little anxious if I’m being honest here.
I knew I wanted a creamy white and NOT a super bright white for our house.
And in all my research…designer after designer…article after article, it was suggested to go with a warm white not a cool white for exteriors.
Since our Sherwin Williams store doesn’t sell small sample containers of exterior paint and I didn’t want to buy 7 quarts of paint to use for samples…I needed to narrow my choices down.
My favorite was Alabaster but several reviews said although it was a beautiful color choice for interiors it was too stark for exteriors.
Boo-hoo!
The Final Two White Paint Color Choices for Our Exterior
So, I listened to the experts and narrowed my 7 white color choices down to 2.
Whoo-hoo I was getting somewhere!
I chose Shoji White and Natural Choice as my final two!
I feel like we’re narrowing down sports teams in elimination rounds.
LOL!
Taking the final two sample cards outside and looking at them in different lighting around our house helped confirm my choice.
Isn’t it funny how different they look in different areas?
All of the photos above were taken in the late afternoon.
The first one is in the front of our house by the porch and front door, the middle photo is also in the front but by the driveway, and the last picture is in the back of our house on the deck which is shaded at that time of day.
Back to our local Sherwin Williams store I went to pick up 2 quarts of paint in my final two paint color choices.
I painted large areas of the exterior of our house in several spots…on the side of the house by our garage, in the back of the house on our deck, and here in the front of our house above the stone.
We wanted to be able to see what the colors looked like on different sides of our house in different lighting.
I would always suggest doing this and then checking the color samples at various times of the day.
These two white color choices are so similar.
Can you even tell the difference?
Want to guess which is which?
Okay I’ll give ya 10 seconds!
And go!!!
Here’s the answer…Shoji White is on the left and Natural Choice is on the right.
Now the real question…which one do you think I went with?
After Painting Our Home’s Exterior White
I chose…
Shoji White!
Is that the color you picked?
I wanted a light and bright color scheme and I got it!
I’ll share all the details of our updated home’s exterior as soon as it’s finished.
We still have a few projects left to do including landscaping and some more fun surprises!
But for now I’m super happy with the white paint color we chose for our exterior.
If you have any questions or suggestions, contact us or leave a comment below.
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