White stucco house with dark brown trim

The bad news... while there are many color schemes options for every house, some architectural styles and some exterior materials do seem to limit the options.

The GOOD news... there are still many ways to create a beautiful color scheme and place colors to make your home look its very best! 

For stucco homes like this that we often see in hot weather regions, it makes sense to focus on lighter colors to assist with reflecting as much sun as possible. Let science do it's work for you and keep your colors from medium to light.

That being said, you can still consider dark colors for smaller architectural features such a window panes or this garage door above. 

And don't forget to choose your focal point, the areas of your house that are the most attractive.  For me, the stone foundation and front door are my favorite features on this California style house.

I love darker house colors, but considering the heat and low single story roof line here, I prefer to stick with lighter hues. And low contrast between the colors keeps your eyes focused on the features we love here.

Medium colors for houses like this create a calming effect and again, low contrast between the body and trim makes the house feel bigger. Here we chose to give the garage door the same color as the body to keep the focus on that gorgeous red front door.

Taking cues from the colors in the stone we chose a deep taupe brown for the body to show off the roof tiles and make a little splash with a fun orange door. Notice we kept the trim the same as the body and added soft off-white to the garage door and window trim to make sure the house feels cheerful and fresh.

This scheme is for anyone who just loves mid-century modern style and doesn't mind standing out in the crowd a little. We've kind of broken the rules here with strong contrast between the body and roof line and little attention to the materials- but notice all of the other trim is very soft. We called out the garage door to play with the bold red front door. This may be my favorite scheme.

Back to the lighter side, we kept this color scheme soft and simple with just one main color and two small accents.

Playing off the roof tiles here, we chose warm white for the body, a creamy deep tan for the roof trim and stone parapet wall. With a scheme this neutral any front door color would be excellent. We chose deep blue to balance the warm scheme.

This is probably the most neutral scheme with a soft body color and warm low contrasting gray for the trim. The bright red door give this palette something fun to talk about.

Here we focused on the red clay tiles as the feature and chose light low contrasting body and trim colors with a fun orange front door.

This scheme is probably the most expected for a house like this. Simple tan and brown is updated though with a fun red door. And notice we painted the door trim to match to make sure this look is welcoming and fresh.

Now it's your turn! Pay attention to the architectural style and materials of your home and to focus on the features you love the most. Choose low contrasting body and trim colors to make your house feel bigger, and don't be afraid to have a little fun with the front door. You'll impress your neighbors and feel great about the colors you've chosen for your house.

How do you modernize a stucco house?

What is the most serious problem with exterior stucco?

Is white stucco a good idea?

What are the most popular stucco colors?