Posted by AnnS on February 04, 2001 at 01:37:07:
Leon,
The easiest way to go about this is to drive around
the neighborhood, find something you like and copy it.
Be sure your choice complements the houses on either
side. Ann
Need color scheme help - Posted by LeonNC
Posted by LeonNC on February 03, 2001 at 21:21:49:
I’m terrible matching colors. I’m roofing a house tomorrow and was wondering if anyone has any color schemes that work best for them. The house hasn’t been painted yet so I’m open to anything.
I’m whooped! A friend and me scraped five layers of shingles off a house today. Luckily the wood was good underneath the shingles. I know it’s too much hands on but I want to get the experience. Wish me luck.
Thanks
LeonNC
Re: Need color scheme help - Posted by dewCO
Posted by dewCO on February 04, 2001 at 19:07:33:
White roof and neutral color for house, with an accent color for trim and front door. What Ann said is good idea.
Re: Need color scheme help - Posted by PatrickMD
Posted by PatrickMD on February 04, 2001 at 11:18:58:
Ah, Leon, me boy, you’re a man after me own heart! And what a great response from Ann! Thank you both for being concerned about the color of the roof. The local environment, both manmade & natural, will give you your clues. If people only put as much thought into the aesthetics of their investments and how it is part of the neighborhood’s fabric as you obviously are, what a better (and bottom line, more valuable!) place we’d all live in.
Color and materials was my specialty in architecture school. If I may pass on some information I learned:
There are some basics that need to be thought about in any architectural materials choice.
- Suitability for the job;
- Longivety;
- Cost vs budget; &
- Aesthetics.
All are equally important, and they’re interconnected; without one, the others collapse.
Suitability is important because, in exterior materials, the weather elements kick ass! How many of us have admired a 100-year-old quarry slate roof? It presents a very durable face to rain, sleet, ice, and sun. And if its neighbors have similar color roofs, they can borrow from those positive characteristics, continue that sense of longevity, even if they are a diferent, yet suitable material like asphalt shingle. Yet, what is your reaction to seeing a 60’ blue poly tarp stretched over some roofing cavity? By not being suitable, something inside you knows it just isn’t going to last - and it looks it! It fails economically and aesthetically.
Case in point: Someone in a neighboring community to ours, the Gettysburg, PA, Frederick, MD area of the Eest Coast, put a new roof on their 1950’s brick rancher. The neighborhood is a neat and and coherent edge of and old historic small town, a mixture of individual identities within a greater whole. Within a 5 mile radius, the neighbors are roofed in either: quarry slate (neo colonial revival or Victorian), natural or synthetic barrel tile (Italianate Victorian, Scandinavian cottage), cedar shake (neo colonial revival, log cabin), or white, gray, or black asphalt shingle (neo colonial revival, contemporary 20th Century). His immediate neighbors have white, gray, or black asphalt shingle, and either of those would have been a safe choice. If he looked at the whole block, he may have even been able to determine a pattern that his roof could have become a part of. The East Coast and San Francisco rowhouses are an example where that’s very successfully accomplished. I guess budget was his only concern. His heighborhood now has a cheap-as-dirt sky blue-painted corrigated fiberglass roof stuck right in the middle of it.
Building materials are of the earth, not of the sky.
On the positive side, the most successful use I’ve seen was a conscious business decision by some leaders of an impoverished village in northern Georgia to create a market for their region out of thin air. After following the advice of a local artist who’d been stationed in the Bavarian Alps, they decided to exploit their geographical advantage, embrace their historical past. With his illustrations of what a Bavarian village should look like, they made themselves into the only Alpine festival village for thousands of miles around. All buildings and street elements follow strict material aesthetic guidelines. All wall finishes are stucco or finished carved wood, all roofs are ceramic barrel tile. 52 weekends a year Alpine Helen, Georgia, (pop. 600 + or -,). 1.5 hours drive north of Atlanta, swells as hundreds of thousands of visitors come to enjoy and celebrate beerfests, hiking, biking, cabins, and canoing, beerfests, the Cherokee Nation, beerfests, snow sports, beerfests, whitewater rafting and kayaking, beerfests, gold panning, beerfests, logging, beerfests, shopping, and, oh! did I mention BEERFESTS? In the days of pre-Disney World, who’d have thought you could make such a bold impact work? But they did. And they can take that to the bank!
Which, by the way, has a ceramic barrel tile roof, just like its neighbors.
Consider your environment. Peace. Pat.