Upon moving into her California home four years ago, interior designer and Clare Collective ambassador Hema Persad immediately got to work renovating each room one by one. She added two additional bedrooms to accommodate her three kids, updated the kitchen, refreshed the bathrooms and transformed the detached garage into her design studio. One of the few things left to revamp was the home’s facade, so she turned to a trio of exterior house paint ideas to give it a look as chic and stylish as the inside.

Previously a flip house, Hema suspects the former owners chose a neutral greenish-gray color for the exterior to play it safe and appeal to as many potential buyers as possible. “It was a color but not really a color,” she says. “It was totally fine, but it didn’t really have personality. It needed to be zhuzhed.”

To bring the exterior up to speed with the home’s interior—which is filled with a mix of modern, traditional and global-inspired elements—she opted for a palette of three paint colors (Snow Day, Blackest and Current Mood) that provided just the right amount of contrast and visual interest. “I was really trying to give it a fresh and modern look that didn’t feel out of place in the neighborhood,” Hema says. Keep scrolling to read up on all her expert tips and exterior house paint ideas.

Tip 1: Consider the Neighborhood

One of Hema’s initial exterior house paint ideas was to do the exterior in a modern all-black look. While the look would be sleek and make a statement, she ultimately decided it would stick out in the neighborhood, which consists of mostly older homes built in the 1950s. “As cool as it is, it just wasn’t right for the neighborhood,” she says. “It felt a little too crazy to be the one black house on the block.”

 

Hema suggests thinking about your new exterior in terms of resale value. “If it’s not your forever home, I think you should consider what looks good with the homes on your block,” she says. “You never want to be that eyesore that sticks out for the wrong reasons.”

Tip 2: Use Multiple Colors to Add Character

Instead of painting the entire exterior black, she decided to paint the front door and trim in the shade—specifically our darkest black Blackest. This provided the drama she was craving and created a graphic contrast against our cool white Snow Day, which is painted on the stucco siding for a fresh and clean look.

For a pop of color, she brought our deep green Current Mood into the fold, painting it on the paneled siding in the front and bringing it around to the back on the patio. It adds a modern touch to the exterior and perfectly complements the natural greenery and landscaping on the property—and creates a lovely backdrop for backyard barbecues, hosting parties and family time outside. “Having multiple colors adds depth and dimension,” she says. “They add personality that wasn’t there before. Now it’s like an outside room.”

Tip 3: Switch it Up with Texture

To create even more visual interest on the home’s exterior, Hema wanted to add wood panel siding to the front to break up the stuccoed look. In lieu of doing an expensive full-on reno on the facade, she heeded advice from a friend in real estate, who suggested the cheaper alternative of smoothing out the stucco and adding wood paneling on top. She then added a coat of Current Mood for a modern pop of color, and the result is a totally new, textural look that doesn’t break the bank. “Think about how you can use color to enhance the texture and create depth and interest,” she says.