How to Pick Vinyl Siding Colors for Your Home

The siding is the most visually dominant home exterior feature. Nailing your vinyl siding system’s color can work wonders for your property’s curb appeal and value. It should pay dividends when you borrow against your house or list it for sale.

However, changing your siding’s original look is a high-risk, high-reward proposition. Making a mistake can turn your home into a neighborhood eyesore. Even worse, it’s too easy to make a poor decision because you can paint vinyl with countless options and replacement products are available in dozens of hues. Instead of selecting something just because it’s your favorite, follow these seven practical tips to avoid regret.

1. Take a Cue From Your Home’s Style

Let architecture narrow your siding color options down to a few because only some work for every home style.

Tuscan homes are synonymous with warmer tones, whereas Craftsman bungalows are quintessentially earthy. Flamboyant, unorthodox color palettes are characteristic of houses from the Victorian era, while Mid-Century Modern properties can get away with being extremely light or dark.

Respecting tradition is a safe bet when updating the color of your vinyl siding panels. Deviating too much from the norm can turn heads for the wrong reason.

If you don’t know your home’s architectural style, Google all the kinds and note those with the same vibe as yours. Architecture is the art of designing a building. Styles should be easy to distinguish since each has distinctly prominent exterior features.

2. Consider Your House’s Size

The surface area your siding covers matters because hues’ effects on the observer depend on their amount.

For instance, red is unfailingly energizing — its liveliness always puts a punctuation mark on any object. However, a generous dose can be overwhelming and raise blood pressure levels.

Another excellent example is black. In small quantities, it lends luxury and elegance to a home feature. As a dominant color, black creates a perception of restrictiveness because it absorbs all light.

Generally, the best vinyl siding colors highlight your house exterior’s strengths and improve its weaknesses. Consider how your choice affects people psychologically and physiologically to decide with intentionality. Otherwise, it can make your home smaller than it is from the street and be stressful to look at by accident.

Siding brands have visualizers. Use these tools to see how various colors would look on a model house similar to yours and determine whether what you have in mind is tackier than you imagine.

3. Don’t Forget About Orientation and Seasonality

The appearance of vinyl siding is relative to the time of year. Sunlight intensity varies by house orientation and season. Therefore, your siding panels will always look different despite having the same hue.

Focus only on a single side. The street-oriented wall is the most consequential because it’s what the whole neighborhood sees.

If your entry faces the north, the soft natural light will make dark and light colors darker and dimmer, respectively. If it orients to the south, the intense sunshine will turn darker hues brighter and make lighter ones appear faded.

If your street-facing wall points to the east, its siding panels will be brighter before noon and duller at night. If it’s to the west, your house’s shadow in the morning will make your siding look paler but warmer as the day ends.

Seasonal changes complicate things. Summer is the sunniest, while winter is the least sunny. Therefore, depending on the month, vinyl siding colors can appear darker, brighter, warmer or duller.

4. Pay Attention to Your Roof’s Color

The pitched roof is second only to the siding as far as visual dominance is concerned. However, the material crowning your house doesn’t necessarily play second fiddle to that gracing the sides of it.

Roof and siding colors should complement each other. The interplay between them can single-handedly make or break your home exterior’s aesthetics.

Generally, roofs are darker than siding panels. Roofing materials have more black in them to harness more heat from the sun and conduct the energy inward to lower energy bills during winter months.

For cohesion, pair a dark roof with siding colored with more tints or tones of the same hue or a closely similar one. In most cases, siding that looks lighter or cooler than the roof makes an aesthetically pleasing combination.

The same logic applies to permanent home exterior elements, such as brick walls and stone veneers. The cost of a vinyl siding replacement project or home exterior paint job is typically less than masonry upgrades, so let your siding design adjust to them to reduce expenses.

5. Think About the Accents

The front door, trim, window frames and shutters round out your home’s exterior color palette. If you want to make these features stand out, your siding should highlight, not overshadow, them.

The cost of repainting or replacing your vinyl siding exceeds that of reimagining these accents. However, if you plan to keep your entry door, trim and windows as they are in the foreseeable future, let them dictate the appearance of your exterior walls.

6. Ponder the Landscape

The landscape represents the part of your property outside your house. It includes the lawn, driveway, pathways, retaining walls and outdoor living space, like a patio or deck.

Regardless of how simplistic or extravagant your property’s landscape is, it always has mixed textures because of its soft and hard components. The softscape consists of vegetation and exposed soil, while the hardscape comprises masonry and fixed wooden elements.

Landscape designs generally have a neutral feel, so they’re usually forgiving. However, those with terra-cotta bricks, stained wood and vibrant flowers are a different story. These landscapes have visually warmer or cooler sections, so don’t overlook their nuances when updating your siding.

7. Look Around Your Neighborhood

Search for any home exterior themes in your neighboring properties. If you notice glaring similarities, your community may be under the jurisdiction of a homeowners’ association (HOA).

Many HOAs promote uniformity. They regulate home improvement projects, preventing residents from drastically changing their home exterior designs to the detriment of property values within the neighborhood.

Your HOA’s covenants, conditions and restrictions may limit the number of vinyl siding colors you can choose from. Familiarize yourself with these standards to know what you can and can’t do to your home exterior.

Choose an Appropriate Vinyl Siding Color for Your Home

Updating your vinyl siding’s design isn’t as straightforward as picking your favorite color. Follow these tips to compare siding or paint products properly and ultimately make the right decision.