re:paint

we have gotten quotes (within $750 of each other) from two different painters for the exterior of our house, which we're hoping to get started on at the end of this month. they will strip/scrape/sand as necessary (not down to bare wood), prime, caulk and paint - one coat of primer and two coats of finish. the quotes were good and both painters come highly recommended, and we're excited to get the house painted - and not worry every time it rains about our siding & trim & new windows.

our problem is deciding what color to paint the house! right now it looks like we're going for the camouflage look...



from upper left, the colors are by sherwin williams: connected gray, svelte sage, avocado (off historic preservation palette), ancient marble, and some brown color i forgot the name of (also off the historic preservation palette). the two trim colors are alabaster and classic white (the creamier color on the right). the window is painted urbane bronze on the left and the bottom right corner is also alabaster.



originally we were thinking a two tone (top half of house painted a different color from bottom half, since we have the trim band that divides the house) - connected gray on top and svelte sage on the bottom with cream trim and bronze windows. we put those samples up and it turns out to look almost exactly like our neighbor's house. so we negated those colors. so we're testing some more colors, but not sure about these either...

avocado w/ classic white (cream) trim & urbane bronze windows:


ancient marble w/ alabaster trim & windows:

(need a 2nd coat of alabaster to make it look whiter like photo above)

we tried out the ancient marble because we thought about repainting the house white, but the four houses across the street are white, and our neighbor's neighbor's house is white also, so we didn't want to go white. ancient marble is a couple shades off of white, but the white (alabaster) trim still pops against it.

the avocado comes off sherwin williams historic preservation palette, and the chip looks olive, especially against other greens, but it looks really green on the house! it's a very cool/funky color, which i like, but i worry that it might be a bit much on the entire house.

so, we're confounded. what color to paint the house? do we do a two-tone? try more samples? any thoughts/opinions/inspiration pics would be greatly appreciated!