Mother Nature can really do a number on a home’s exterior. This was the case for artist and interior stylist Ashley Whiteside's cottage-style family home, whose dark exterior was faded after years of soaking up the North Carolina sun.

 Before

The solution? An outdoor overhaul with our new exterior paint. And specifically: light gray exterior paint in the form of Grayish—which has beautiful, subtle green undertones—plus bold Daily Greens for the door, and Timeless and No Filter for the trim and shutters to round it all out. 

After

Keep scrolling to learn how Ashley picked out her colors, hear about the prep and painting process, and to see all the up-close details of the end result (spoiler alert: it’s pretty amazing!). 

Start with Color

As an artist and stylist, Ashley knows her way around a color palette. “Color is always, always where I begin,” she says. “It usually inspires the project and also helps decide what feeling I want to reflect and how I want the room or painting to communicate.” 

She poured over our curated exterior paint color selection, seeking out a combination that complemented the house’s classic bones while connecting with the style of her interiors, which have a more modern look and are packed with color.

Swatching proved to be an essential part of landing on the color palette. It’s always a key step in choosing a paint color, but is especially important for exteriors exposed to direct sunlight, where color appearance will change dramatically depending on the time of day. Luckily, our Perfect Color Swatches make it super easy to test out how colors will look. Simply peel and stick on any surface—and don’t be afraid to move the swatches around to see how they look with different colors or in different areas. 

A more conservative homeowners association meant she couldn’t go as bold and bright as her interiors, but she was able to infuse some of her signature playfulness and charm with our mossy olive Daily Greens on her front door.

For the primary color on the siding, Ashley says that she knew all along she would go with Grayish. From afar, it appears to be a classic light gray exterior paint, but a closer look reveals cool green undertones that connect it to the bolder green door and the lush forest that surrounds the house on three sides. 

From there, picking out colors for everything else was easy. The trim received a coat of Timeless—the perfect warm off-white that reflects light beautifully—and our light beige No Filter was applied to the shutters for the slightest hint of contrast. 

Prep & Paint

With her palette picked out, it was finally time to start painting. Painting a multi-story exterior is no small job, so Ashley turned to the pros and brought in painters she’s worked with before. After getting the final go-ahead from the HOA to give her home a gray exterior paint job, she scheduled the painters and got rolling on a few other exterior updates she wanted to make simultaneously, including a minor overhaul of the landscape, fixing damaged areas of the sidewalk, trimming trees, and freshening up the furnishings on the front porch.

All in all, it was a five-day process that involved prepping with a good power wash, repairing minor damage, and then painting the siding, trim, and door one by one. 

And the end result? It’s safe to say she’s pretty smitten. “I legitimately can’t look at it all without pausing for a deep inhale,” Ashley says. “It is stunning. So fresh and calming. The house looks like it was always supposed to be this color, and every single neighbor, family member, and friend that has seen it says so.”