For the past year I’ve been eyeing our stucco home wanting to get my hands on it with a fresh coat of paint. AND IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING! We’re painting our house! I’m so excited about this big project we’re about to undertake. That’s right, my friends, we’re going to paint it ourselves! One thing that I want to do is get a quote from a local painter so I can do a price comparison of DIY versus hire.

But let’s chat about the most important part: the new paint color. Our home is stucco so we knew we either wanted to go dark or light. If you had asked us three years ago, we probably would have said gray. But here we are and we’ve decided to go white with black accents. It is going to be such a refreshing and welcomed change. To see if we would like it, I did a mock up of a part our home using photoshop. Here’s a fun glimpse at what our home will look like after:

Now, what paint colors are we using exactly? We painted a few white samples on different areas of our home. We want to make sure that the color we pick, we love it from all angles and in different types of lighting. Going from left to right, here are the five main colors we tested: Simply White, Alabaster, White Dove, Cloud White and Swiss Coffee (the one on the bottom). You can also tell from the picture how desperately our home needs to be painted and cleaned up!

We knew right away the second color (Alabaster) was pulling too much gray and the third color (White Dove) was showing a pink hue. It was only in some lighting but it was enough to kick those two colors out. And then it ultimately came down to the 1st (Simply White) and 4th color (Cloud White). We like to play a game where we write down our top two choices (especially with paint) and then reveal our favorites. This way, if there’s one we both put down it’s a no brainer. We both happen to write down colors 1 and 4.

So which color did we go with? We decided to go with Simply White! I of course took to Pinterest to see if I could find any homes painted with Simply White. I’m such a visual person so this helped me confirm this is the white we want to go with. Here’s one example of Simply White on the exterior of a home (by Arrows and Bows).

The windows we will be painting black and using the same method that I used for our interior windows. The black is Black Magic by Sherwin Williams. I can’t wait for this step because it’s going to play a huge role in transforming the exterior of our home.

As for the black trim, garage door, etc., we’re still deciding on that black. Originally I thought I was going to use the same black as the windows but I’m nervous it will be too dark. I’m going to use the next few days to figure this part out! If you have any suggestions, I’d love for you to share in the comments!

Well, my friends, this is a HUGE project we’re about to get started on and I can’t wait to share the entire process with you. Painting our house isn’t going to be easy but it’s certainly going to make it budget friendly by going this route. As always, you can follow the behind the scenes over at @withinthegrove on Instagram. I can’t wait to share this transformation with you!

Looking for more paint inspiration? Check out these posts on the best gray paints, best white paints and how to get a clean paint line every time.

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