When we bought our house last September, we knew our roof was on it’s last leg. It’s the original roof (23 years) and usually these types of roofs (three tab shingles) only last 20 years. We’ve been fortunate enough to not had any leaks, the only issue we’ve had is a few missing shingles. So besides the fact it brings down the curb appeal a tad, our house was ok.

However, I don’t think we should wait for our roof to leak in order to fix it. We’ve been putting away money for a new roof, knowing it would need to be done soon. So with getting a new roof, the other questions that come are: what type of roof do we want to get and what color roof do we want to get.

We’re going to go with the dimensional/architectural roof shingles, basically what most of the houses have if you’d drive around in any suburban neighborhood.

Then when you ask us the color, well that opens up a whole bunch of what ifs. Our house currently has wood siding. While it’s nicer than the traditional vinyl, wood siding has a few drawbacks. 1. Woodpeckers, trust me, they are not good news for wood siding. Just ask our multiple holes around our house. 2. Maintenance – it needs to be repainted over time. 3. Rot, wood siding can rot unfortunately.

Since we’ll be needing to replace our siding in about a year (probably with vinyl for longevity) we have the options to spice up the color on our house. Our house features brick in the front but the rest of the siding plus the trim is a light beige. Not my first pick for color choice, but it really goes well with the current brick. And while I love painted brick, I feel if we paint over this brick, our house would loose some of it’s appeal and look flat. So if we decide we want to go a different color route, we might also want to adjust the color of the roof too.  Seriously, does it have to be this complicated?!

So to get some ideas, I did a little pinterest browsing (view my exterior home pins) and drove around a few expensive neighborhoods to see if any houses had similar brick and if so, what did they pair with it for the color of the siding, trim and roof. Here are a few pinterest photos I was loving:

So then like any person would do, they’d try to imagine their house with different paint colors. But to get the most realistic effect, I went to photoshop and tried a few quick options (quick is the key word). Here is what I came up with:

What’s your favorite? Surprisingly I’m liking the same siding color, but with the tad bit darker trim option (the last one). Or maybe I’m just nervous because I’m used to what it has been. So seriously, tell me which is your favorite… since it’s not your house and you aren’t used to pulling it up to it everyday.

Also if you didn’t notice, I changed the roof color on a few also, since I thought a more grayish roof with less brown would look better with some colors?