Choosing Exterior Colors for Older Nashville Homes

Older homes around Nashville, from the bungalows of East Nashville and Sylvan Park to the Victorian-era houses in Germantown and the cottages near 12 South, have a character that new houses can't fake. The right colors bring that out. The wrong ones can make a beautiful old house look flat or out of place on its street.

Here's how to approach color on an older home, and what the wood underneath needs before any of it goes on.

Start with the house, not the swatch

Every older house has a style, and each style has its own sense of color.

Craftsman bungalows tend to look best in earthy, grounded colors: greens, warm grays, clay, deep browns and muted blues. Trim is often a contrasting cream or a darker shade, and the exposed rafter tails and brackets give you room for an accent.

Victorian-era houses have more detail, so they can carry more color. Brackets, spindles and window surrounds were often picked out in their own shade. The trick is restraint: use the detail to guide where color goes, rather than painting every piece differently.

Simple cottages and four-squares look best with a clear body color, crisp trim and one confident accent, often on the front door.

Look at the house's original features too. Brick foundations, stone steps, a metal roof or the color of the porch ceiling all limit and guide your palette. Choose colors that sit comfortably with what's staying.

Look at the street

On an older Nashville street, your house is part of a row. You don't need to match the neighbors, but it helps to notice the overall feel. A palette that reads well next door and across the street will look settled rather than loud.

If your home is in a historic zoning overlay, paint color on wood is not reviewed. The exception is masonry. In a historic preservation or historic landmark overlay, painting brick or stone needs a preservation permit, even repainting brick that's already painted. Neighborhood conservation overlays don't review painting at all. In a historic preservation overlay, changes to windows, materials or architectural details can also need review, so check with the Metro Historic Zoning Commission before that kind of work.

Testing colors properly

Older homes often have deep porches and mature trees, which change how colors look through the day. Before you commit:

• Paint large samples, not small chips, on two or three walls.
• Look at them in the morning, at midday and in the evening.
• Check them in shade and under the porch, not only in full sun.
• Compare the body color next to your trim choice, since they affect each other.

Colors usually look lighter and brighter on a whole house than on a swatch. If a sample looks washed out on the wall, try a shade deeper.

A real color scheme from East Nashville

On a South Inglewood house in East Nashville that we wrote about on our old blog, the siding went to Sherwin-Williams Anonymous (SW 7046) and the trim to Shoji White (SW 7042), in Sherwin-Williams Emerald. A deep, quiet body color with a soft white trim is a simple scheme that suits a lot of older Nashville houses.

Exterior repaint in Lockeland Springs, East Nashville.

What the wood needs first

Color is only as good as what's under it. On an older house, a few things come before any finish coat:

Checking for rot. Sills, porch parts, the bottoms of columns and the lowest boards of siding take the most water. They get probed, and any rot is quoted separately as carpentry, with photos, so you approve every repair before it happens.

Priming bare wood. Any bare or weathered wood gets a quality primer before finish coats. Old wood can be thirsty, and primer keeps the topcoat even.

Caulking the right joints. Joints between trim and siding get fresh caulk to keep water out. Some gaps, like the overlaps on lap siding, should stay open so the wall can breathe.

Windows and porches. Older wood windows and porch floors take a beating. They often need more attention than the walls themselves, and they're worth doing right.

Taking care of it afterward

Once the work is done, a few habits keep it looking good: keep gutters clear, trim back shrubs so the siding can dry, wash off mildew on shaded walls, and touch up sills and porch steps before small cracks become peeling.

Working with us

Nash Painting has painted Middle Tennessee homes since 2009. There's no deposit, the written bid shows exactly what's included, and painting work carries a warranty of up to 10 years, depending on the package. See our exterior painting page, browse recent work nearby, or schedule an estimate.