Choosing Our Exterior Trim Color

I love our brick home but I don’t love the color of the trim. It matches the mortar almost exactly and that’s just not the exterior element I want to emphasize the most. I heard from our neighbor that the trim was last painted 2 owners ago. She watched as the owner hung out of the windows to paint the trim and said she thought it looked very dangerous. I also learned that the color is called peanut butter and I’ve never heard a more accurate color name.

In addition to switching up the color, we also want to have the trim painted as a chance to repair some very crackled and weathered paint and wood. The trim and paint at the front of the house are actually in very good condition but the back and right side are the “weather” sides and have not fared nearly as well. We decided to hire painters as this project is beyond our abilities and I get nervous about either of us that high up on a ladder.

We scheduled the painting to begin the first week of June but they have yet to show up. We’ve had a very rainy spring in Pittsburgh, so I’m sure their schedule has been thrown off. And we didn’t have to give a deposit (probably for this very reason) BUT I can’t say I’m not salty that my check-in phone calls and voice mails have not been returned. The bright side here is that means I get to spend more time agonizing over my color choice.

Red brick homes with black trim are my favorite kind of homes. But more often than not, the roofs on those houses are slate or gray asphalt. Our home has a medium brown roof, which no doubt was chosen to go with the peanut butter trim. I’ve been worried that going super dark or super black on the trim would look out of place with the roof.

Our painters are going to use Sherwin Williams exterior paint, so I grabbed the darkest brown paints I could find. And then on a second trip, grabbed even darker colors. I made Andy display the swatches against the trim in different spots around the house as well as holding them up high near the roof over the front door.

Our two favorite colors quickly became Sherwin Williams Black Magic and Black Fox.

And because visualizing paint on something as big as a house is tough, I mocked up some options in photoshop.

Exterior Trim Paint Option 1 : Black Magic

The first Sherwin Williams black paint option we gravitated toward was Tricorn Black, though it felt a little too intense to me. SW’s Black Magic is a slightly softer black, but still has that boldness we’re looking for. This option says, OUR TRIM IS GREAT, and brings out the darker notes in the brick.

Exterior Trim Paint Option 2: Black Fox

When I first posted that we were thinking about the perfect Sherwin Williams color to go with our brick exterior, SO MANY people DMed me to say how highly they recommend Black Fox. And they were right. It looks so good with brick and goes well with our brown roof. This is a super subtle option, one that lets the brick speak a little louder than the rest.

Which is your favorite, which one would you choose: Black Magic or Black Fox?