Whenever most people think about the design decisions they’ll have to make for their home, rooms like the kitchen and bathrooms are usually the first to come to mind. Or perhaps, a dope home theater and a nursery for your firstborn. Rarely though, do we think about exterior paint colors or siding vs. stucco. We get so excited thinking about how we’ll live inside the home that we forget to consider what it’ll look like on the outside. Luckily though, exteriors are fairly simple. I’ve got 6 tips for you that will ensure you’re able to create a home that looks as beautiful on the outside as the family on the inside :)

Get Inspired

Anytime I’m starting on a new design project, I like to gather inspiration first. You can get design inspiration from anywhere or anything—don’t feel like you have to limit yourself only to buildings that look exactly like your house. You can use restaurants, hotels, any type of building as inspiration. Obviously, you don’t want all of your inspiration images to be of Florida beach houses if your home is on a mountainside in Idaho, but getting inspiration from various places is totally fine if it makes sense for your home. Looking at a wide variety of inspiration images not only helps you hone in on your design style and figure out what you like, but it also helps you determine what you don’t like.

I always create a new Pinterest board for my design projects to keep my ideas all in one place, without all of my other projects cluttering up my design thinking space. I like to think of it like my project’s mood board. Because I’m home-obsessed, I’ve actually been getting inspiration for my home’s exterior for…basically my entire life, but still had a lot of fun getting visuals for everything I wanted all in one place. I pinned a bunch of different images of homes that I liked and then I went back and compared the images until I could pinpoint their similarities.

What I loved:

• Neutral color scheme…no surprise there, I’m a sucker for black and white. I LOVE the look of a white or light-colored house with dark accents. It’s just so clean and striking, plus they really stand out on a suburban street (like mine) where most houses have brick and warm tones.

• A mix of modern farmhouse and contemporary styles. Modern farmhouse is very popular right now. Anyone who’s been inside a Target or TJ Maxx in the last 5 years knows this. Modern farmhouse isn’t exactly how I’d describe my style overall, but it does have a lot of the elements I was looking for in a house— black and white color scheme, dramatic roofline, simple accents, fits in while standing out, and popular enough that you don’t need a custom home to achieve the look. Contemporary homes on the other hand, well those have my whole heart. Contemporary homes typically have a neutral color palette as well, with dark and wood accents, but have flatter roof lines that don’t come to a sharp peak. Semi-custom contemporary homes are a lot harder to come by in my area without spending double or triple my budget, but alas, a girl can dream.

• Simple landscaping. I’m not a gardener at all, nor do I really care for spending a ton of time outside. Because of this, I knew I wanted a simple, yet striking landscape design that was 1) easy to maintain and 2) didn’t take up too much of Ira’s pride and joy—the lawn.

• Covered entryway. Who likes fumbling with their keys in the rain? Not me.

• Large, dark trim windows. *heart flutters*

• Modern front door. A super tall, double-width, iron front door with frosted glass panels to be exact, but I’ll take what I can get.

• As much height as possible. Anything that will make the house look larger and more grand is good in my book.

What I knew I didn’t want:

• Too much siding. Growing up in Virginia, I was surrounded by Colonial-style houses—think red brick, colored shutters, and (my least favorite of all) siding on the front of the house. I want simple, but not plain.

• Weird roof lines. This one is kind of hard to explain, but you know it when you see it.

• Brick/stone combos. 9 times out of 10 this just looks way too busy to me. Even when the brick and stone complement each other (and I’ve seen plenty of examples where it does not), it’s just too much. I prefer a clean and simple look without too much going on.

• Flat looking houses. We don’t have a second story, but I wanted the outside to kind of look like we might have a second story.

After figuring out what I Iiked and didn’t like, I was ready to choose the elevation for our home.

Choose an Elevation

When using a semi-custom builder (like Ashton Woods, Toll Brothers, Taylor Morrison, etc.), you’ll probably have a few different elevations you can choose from for the exterior of your home. The elevation is the view of your home’s exterior, aka what it looks like from the outside, aka what EVERYONE driving by will see and therefore very important. Here were our options:

Based on what I already learned about my design style, it was pretty easy to decide which elevation I liked best. A - Not bad, but a little plain. B & C - Brick/stone combo, no thanks. H - Too much siding. I - Too flat. G - Perfection! Only one type of masonry, interesting roof lines with a combination of peaks and flat sections, large windows, and a major plus: two garage doors! Our home was actually an inventory home, which meant that the elevation had already been predetermined by our builder. But, we just lucked out and got the exact elevation we wanted!

Also, side note: It’s important when selecting your elevation that you don’t pay too much attention to the color scheme in the rendering. Most of the time (if not all of the time), you’ll be able to select the colors and materials you want for the outside of your home based on a variety of options the builder has available. Obviously, the color combination in the rendering for Elevation G is nothing like my inspiration images, but I knew I’d be able to change the colors. During this step, you really only need to pay attention to the shape, type of material, how many colors there are (body, accent color 1, accent color 2, etc.), windows, and garages.

Create A Color Story

After you’ve picked an elevation, then select your colors/finishes! We got to choose between about 6 different masonry options, brick and stone. 4 of the options were red brick so I couldn’t really tell you much about those as they were immediately ruled out. The only two options we actually compared were white Limestone (1) and white Flagstone (2).

Both options were beautiful, but the Flagstone has a little more variation in color, as you can see, and you usually end up with some yellow looking pieces. Some houses end up with a little yellow, some end up with a lot, it all just depends. I didn’t want to risk having any yellow at all, so we went with the Limestone. Easy decision again. The selection of the paint colors was where is got a little tricky.

Unfortunately, Ira and I weren’t in love with the placement of the colors in our design or the pre-made color combinations our builder had to offer (we’re picky, I know). Going back to our inspiration, we knew we wanted a majority white house with dark accents. None of the color combinations really matched that description BUT we did find two colors that we liked that were in two different color packages—Windfresh White and Gauntlet Gray. So we asked the builder two things— could we make our own color combination AND could we switch up where the colors would be. The first image below shows our custom color combo with the colors where the builder specified they should go and the second image shows where we wanted them to go.

Our builder’s color placement wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t fitting with our inspiration, plus looked a little off-balance to me. It didn’t feel like there was enough of the accent color to make it look intentional and I couldn’t understand why the area behind the large windows was considered trim (accent color) instead of the body (main color) of the house. So we proposed a change. Not a major change, just swapping the garage color and the color behind the front windows. Seems simple enough right? Well after a week or so we got the official word from our builder—denied. Unfortunately, our HOA wasn’t allowing any custom exterior options so we’d have to stick to the color combos as-is, without moving anything around. Since there were no light-dark color combinations in the black/white family (just browns and tans) we went with an all-white exterior and will add our own dark accents with the black front door, windows, and light fixtures.

I was a little upset at first, but I actually really love the way the all-white looks. It’s clean and simple (in case I haven’t said that enough already), with just enough black to make it look modern and striking. I am a bit worried about the house showing dirt or looking dingy (especially the garage doors), but I suppose that’s nothing a good power wash can’t fix. Overall, the most important things to keep in mind when creating the color story for your home are to keep it cohesive and don’t forget to add an accent color. A cohesive color scheme will keep the house from look too busy and an accent color will keep it from looking flat or boring. You can use the accent color on the trim, doors, windows, roof, fixtures, just don’t go overboard. It is an accent, after all.

Try before you buy

The thing that helped me the most when trying to figure out what different color scheme I liked best for my home was creating a mock-up that showed exactly where each color would be placed. I’m a very visual person, so getting to see what different color combinations looked like before actually deciding on a color was key. At first I thought our builder would be a little weirded out at the levels I went to to make sure the house would look the way I wanted, but everyone actually super impressed and even mentioned how awesome it would be to be able to do that for all of their buyers! I even sent them the one I did with the custom colors to see if it would get the HOA to change their mind. Ha!

After hearing from Ashton Woods that they don’t offer any type of visualization tool for their design offerings I did some research and found the case was the same with most semi-custom builders! I couldn’t believe people were out here buying homes without being able to see exactly what it would look like first, so I decided to use my obsessive-design powers for the greater good. I now offer Exterior Home Mockups starting at $75 per image, with discounts for multiple images or elevations. All you need is a clear image or 3D rendering of your home and you’ll be able to see what it would look like in any color or material finish. Contact me to get started!

Consult Your Builder

Like I mentioned before, I asked my builder about customizing the exterior of our home when I wasn’t thrilled with the available options. Although the answer was ultimately no, it didn’t hurt to ask! Every builder and every community is different, and in fact, had I built with Ashton Woods in a community 2 miles over, the answer would’ve been yes! Your builder is also a great resource for seeing more examples of what your home looks like in real life to help you make a decision. My sales agent was able to show us images of other homes she had built in our floorplan, or with a similar color scheme, or that had features we were interested in. I can’t speak for every builder, but everyone we’ve worked with at Ashton Woods so far has truly gone above and beyond to make sure we have all of the information we need to be able to build a home that we love.

Our Exterior choices + Upgrades

Since we’re already on the topic of exteriors, what better time to tell y’all our final selections and walk you through our upgrades so far?! I’ve included the prices for our upgrades below because I knowww cost is a huge question everyone has when building a home. “How much is it really going to cost? When all is said and done, what will the price of the house actually be?” I know those were the two questions that ran through my mind in every model home, on every house tour, while we signed our initial contract, as we prepared for our design appointment…you get the picture. So I included prices for you. That being said, HUGE DISCLAIMER: prices will vary. Prices on any upgrade (and what is even considered an upgrade) may vary based on the builder, floorplan, community, state/locality, specific products used, time of building, you name it! So I include these prices 1) because I really wish someone else had posted their upgrade costs so I had a ballpark figure to base my research on and 2) to give you an idea of what you might have to pay although your actual cost may (and probably will) be different. So now that we’ve covered that, let’s get into it!

Selections

Body Color: SW 7627 White Heron
Trim Color: SW 7627 White Heron

Standards

Masonry on front (per elevation)
Full siding on sides and rear (per elevation)
Single coach light
White or almond windows
Fiberglass front door
Sod in front of house

Upgrades

Modern 4 panel front door - $1445
Dark bronze windows - $6045 (Girl, YES. I know. I know. Curse my damn, expensive taste.)
Add 2 coach lights - $80 each
Gutters (front and back) - $1500
7 zone sprinkler system - $3750
Garage door openers - $305 each
Wifi camera prewire - $83 each
Soffit (upper) outlets, for Christmas lights or cameras - $83 each

Hopefully, these tips help make your design process a little easier and you’re feeling more prepared to start making design decisions! If you’re still feeling stuck or need more help, drop me a comment below or send me a message! I can’t wait to hear from you!