Do any of you have recommendations on brands of house shutters? I have heard that many pre-colored shutters fade easily. I'm open to hearing about ones needing painting and/or pre-colored ones. If you know about this sort of thing as well as cost/value information, I would welcome your thoughts.
Currently: Our two-story, more traditionally-styled home, is sided in a mid-brown color, which I like to refer to as light colored poop. I hate it, but unless a massive wind storm comes and rips it off and it needs to be replaced, it has to stay. The house trim is dark brown - also yucky. The doors are light grey - bleh. Trim around the doors is stark white and trim on the windows is off-white. Roof trim and gutters are dark brown. The shutters are also dark brown (but very faded) and at one point did match the trim. The roof, which is brand new architectural shingles, we selected the color of and is a nice mixture of browns and greys. Aside from the roof, I cannot stand the look of the home. In case you're wondering why we bought it...it fits all of our other needs and desires.
Plan: Keep the siding and roof. Paint the trim and gutters to all stark white or all the same off-white as the windows. Replace the shutters.
#1 QUESTION: What color would you do on the shutters? We are thinking black or deep/hunter green, keeping in the traditional tones of the style of the home. But, I would love your opinions and suggestions.
#2 QUESTION: What color would you paint the doors? We have a front door. A front laundry room door, which is also visible from the front porch and a side door to enter the attached garage, but that is at the rear of the house. The garage doors will likely be painted the same color as the house's siding as to not draw extra attention to them.
Re: Best Shutters (mm) and House Colors (nmm).
Our shutters are half wood and half vinyl, the ones under our front porch aren't exposed to the weather as much and they are wood...but the shutters on the front exposure are vinyl. We've had them painted before and it was fine. One of them broke when we had our siding replaced so the contractor replaced that one and I think it was pretty cheap. I guess with shutters unless you plan for them to actually be functional, cheap vinyl is the way to go. The vinyl shutters get full sun and all the fun summer heat and aside from the one breaking when it came off the house we've never had issues with cracking or fading.
I think a dark hunter green shutter with your other colors would look nice.
If you look on pinterest or google you can see a bunch of "brown houses with black shutters" to get an idea of what it might look like.
I tend to like shutters the same color as the trim. But if your all's preference is black or hunter green, I'd lean to hunter green. However, a lot of that is personal preference. I don't like the color black for anything. I don't even own an LBD, lol (I know, totally unrelated to houses).
Unless it is very specifically chosen for a stylized color scheme, I think white doors almost always look best. A new/nice looking front door is one of the cheapest ways to really snazz up a house.
I know you said you all don't want to paint your house. And I can't blame you there! But it is really cheap and easy to DIY. Super time consuming, though. I'd say kids as young as 8-9 can be taught to paint, so maybe when your kids are a little older it could be a family project. The second floor would be the hardest part, but there are one-man lift type thingamajigs that can be rented.