Vancouver Colour Consultant: Can You Mix Brick & Stone on Your Exterior? Before & After

I’m here in Oklahoma. I first met my lovely clients on-line early this year in February. They were building their forever home and found my blog after the house was painted and they were VERY unhappy with the final result.

‘I even liked the yellow primer (above) better than the awful sage green that we have now!’ my client wrote in her email after she found me on-line. ‘We are shocked at how much the after photo ages the house, it went from a bright looking house, to a dark and gloomy house, please help!’

I’m here helping her choose furniture for her entire house. She laughed when she told me today that when she first called me and found out I could help her fix the colours on her house, she slept well that night for the first time in weeks!

The first problem with the colours was that they had selected pink beige brick with yellow beige stone. If you’ve read my ebook or my blog long enough, you’ll know that mixing pink beige with yellow beige always causes pink beige to look dirty.

Pink beige brick, yellow beige stone, a gray brown roof and sage green hardy board, fascia and gutters was definitely way too many colours.

When you look at brick and stone in samples sizes, it seems harmless enough right? What could be wrong with a brown and yellow combination like this one (above)?

Well once you know that if you are looking at hard finishes, carpeting or fabric and it’s looking ‘brown and neutral’ to you? Chances are, you are just about to install the most limiting beige undertone of them all. Pink Beige. 

I have seen so many bad exteriors with multiple combinations of brick and stone. My advice regarding combining brick and stone is very similar to this post I just wrote about combining multiple patterns in hard finishes. Bottom line, there must be a relationship to the exterior finishes you are selecting or what you will have in the end is a big mess!

What’s the solution? Well I could see that the roof was gray brown, not a green or red brown. We couldn’t introduce a red/pink brown to replace the green because then it would clash with the yellow stone. Any shade of yellow was not an option because then it would continue to clash with the pink beige stone.

First we started with photos of large painted samples in the colours I thought would be right. My clients patient husband held them while she snapped away.

A dark taupe was the answer. Here we have BM Ashley Grey on the left gable and Fairview Taupe on the right. You can still see the original Woodstock Brown (sage) the the colour the manufacturer recommended for the hardy board to coordinate with roof.

The Ashley Grey still looked too pink in comparison, so Fairview Taupe was the winner.

Here’s the before photo again:

before

after

And here is their lovely house in the end. All the trim and posts were painted Grant Beige, which is beautiful with the yellow beige stone. Creamy without looking too yellow.

My client did a beautiful job of specifying the shutters so they look in proportion with the windows. I went crazy over the dog shutter detail which keeps them slightly ajar not flat against the house (below):

Because we were able to coordinate the remaining colours so well, the trim colour on the shutters and the yellow beige stone look like it does relate to the lighter creamy looking tones in the pink beige brick.

Sometimes, colour can work magic and in this case, I think it did!

If you need help coordinating your exterior colour scheme so that your house fills you with happiness when you see it, go here.

Related posts:

Why Pink Beige Should be Banished Forever

 When Can you Combine Patterned Stone or Tile?

 Happiness is. . . A Little Magic