Believe it or not I am not calling out this house for being green.
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While I can understand how on first glance the colour scheme of this house can make you double take and wonder “what were they thinking?”, it’s not the very green colour of this house that makes it look…well…bad.

It’s the trim that is the problem and those two white pillars.

Why are they white?

Did they run out of trim paint?

When it comes to choosing the exterior colours for a house you want to create a cohesive look by not randomly introducing colours. These white pillars stick out because they don’t tie into anything else on the house, except the windows and because the windows are trimmed out in brown, it doesn’t work.

Speaking of the Trim

The trim makes the green scream. I think the plan was to maybe to match it to the front door but the brown trim has too much red in it and the two colours are not a pretty combination. Red and green are complementary colours on the colour wheel so when you use them together they make the other look more intense and brighter. That’s why this trim looks red and the siding screams green.

Linda Holt of Linda Holt Designs wrote a great article on how to use and not use complementary colours on her blog. She shows the exact same problem in a cherry wood kitchen with green walls. You can check out her article here. She perfectly explains the difference between complementary and complimentary. This trim does not compliment the green.

If the entire trim and the pillars all had been painted out in white you would have a much prettier combination. Maybe not my favourite shade of green but it would have worked and this cute house on the corner would having been charming. The white would also tie in the white windows and made their nice detail a feature of the front of the house.

I like fresh green houses. Here is a perfect example.
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I love the rich green front door on this house and it would have worked on the one in my neighbourhood as well, but I would love to hear from you on what colour front door you would use.

So now you know that complementary colours are not always friends and I am all about keeping my neighbourhood friendly.