| | | | |

Paint Your Porch a Different Color Than Your House – Really!

Does it sound crazy to paint your porch a different color than the exterior of your home? I’m here to show you it may be the best idea you’ve ever had!

Are you looking into your screened porch that is the same color as the exterior of your home and it’s not working with your interior decor?

Well guess what? You can paint your porch or patio a completely different color than your house…really!

My Porch is a Different Color Than The Exterior of My Home

I’m here to help you break the rules and consider a new color for your porch or patio.

Especially if you the porch or patio from the inside of one of your primary rooms: kitchen, living room, dining room, etc. 

I’m lucky and have an open concept home, BUT that means you see from the foyer straight through to the screened porch.

In addition, the kitchen has double doors open to the porch, which makes it A GREAT entertainment space!  

sophisticated-kitchen-island-blue-hydrandgeas

However, standing in my kitchen you see straight into my screened back porch sunroom. 

You can see I’ve decorated my home and kitchen very light colors, but the exterior of my home is a dark blue.

Porch Daydreamer Paint Home Tours

It felt heavy and literally took the light out of the space…even into my kitchen.

So I decided to paint my screened porch a different color than the exterior of my home!

blue house with double front porches charleston style house with southern charm

Break the Exterior Paint Color Rules

Are you a rule follower? I confess I am in most of my life and walk a straight line, but in decorating I believe in breaking the rules.

Personalizing your space means you should break the rules from time to time. That’s what creates an eclectic and a unique-to-you home. I’m a big fan of that!

Normally, homeowners keep the screened porch or patio the same color as their home – like I did. 

Why, because we have to…who says? I’m here to tell you to break that rule unless you have an exterior color that works with the interior of your home, but usually that’s not the case.

What if you have a red siding house, but your interior colors are in shades of green and white? You don’t want to be celebrating Christmas all year!

Dark Blue Exterior Paint
Dark Blue Exterior Paint

That brings me to my home and why I sought out something different. 

I love the exterior color, which is a dark grayed blue with black shutters and white trim.  It’s the perfect mix for my double porch Charleston styled home.

However, nothing about the downstairs and the interior of my home is dark. 

It’s all soft pale colors and seeing that dark blue through my kitchen was driving me CRAZY! 

whole-home-paint-colors-soothing-blue-white-paint-colors-open-concept

Throughout my downstairs I have a very coastal feel with colors of sand, sea and sky.

“Iron Frost” wasn’t the the color scheme inside of my home for sure! It just sounds cold and dark 🙂

Valspar-Iron-Frost-4007-2B

Trying to brighten up the porch I added furniture, a rug, mirror, drapes and plants…I still wasn’t happy. 

Judge for yourself – it is dark and dreary despite my efforts. When you looked through to my screened porch, the light stopped in the space and closed it in. 

Never did I or my guests enjoy this space. It just wasn’t inviting.

Dark Blue Screened Porch
Screened Porch Same Color as Exterior

How to Break the Exterior Paint Color Rules

Are you dealing with a similar situation? Let’s break the rules together and paint our porches a color other than the exterior of our homes!

I searched the Internet looking for validation on making this decision and no one else talked about doing this, so maybe I just didn’t find it or I am now a trailblazer 🙂

To keep that light and airy feel of my downstairs I choose a nice neutral (think sand) that worked with the cushions of the furniture at the time.

I knew it would be timeless regardless of the changes that I made to the decor because I ALWAYS do!

Valspar-Country-Charm-3007-10B

Plus it was a beautiful complement to the colors in my kitchen and family room.

A gray and sand color scheme started to form and it was the start of the look I have today.

Think about what color may complement your interior?

If you have a hard time choosing a paint color, I have simple guide CLICK HERE for where to start

Neutral Sand Paint on Screened Porch
Paint on Screened Porch

So I hired my favorite painter and in one day more porch was done and FELT SO MUCH BETTER in the lighter paint color!

WOW what a difference!  The screened porch now felt like an extension of my indoor living space and changed everything! 

Clearly I’ve done some redecorating too, but now it is a ROOM that I enjoy. You can read about the makeover here…

5 Budget Friendly Updates for Your Patio or Porch

I went from never sitting out on the screened porch to ALWAYS sitting on my there especially for my morning coffee 🙂

white-navy-driftwood-screened-porch-round-coffee-table-maltese-sofa-min

Contains hand selected products, with affiliate marketing links where I may make a small commission if a purchase is made. {full disclosure here}

Color Changes Everything, but Comfort is King

This amazing change was accomplished by choosing a new COLOR! Go figure?

It opened up a whole new entertainment space. My friends and family loved siting on the porch. 

Just a simple color shift made the porch more inviting. More and more I was entertaining on the porch.

Next, I added a TV to make it an even better space! I’m a big Clemson Tiger football fan and wanted to be “outside” while I watched the games.

Now I stream my son’s college football games, when I can’t be there in person. Perfection!

screened-porch-chairs-sofa-driftwood-white-navy-pillows-min

Even with the paint color change and adding a TV it wasn’t the lounge space I wanted it to be.

The table bench seating wasn’t comfortable and you couldn’t put up your feet, which is really what you want to do when you relax!

Plus not everyone could see the TV from the table and it created a lot of uncomfortable “leaning” positions for my guests to see what was on the screen.  NOT RELAXING.

Then when my parents come to visit, usually the girls and boys want to watch different shows.  

back-porch-blue-and-white-tv-screened-porch-min

Same in your house? Making the porch into a secondary TV watching location started becoming more important.

Adding a large sofa and two chairs was the best decision ever, so it would now be a “lounge” space.

shop the screened porch

A Color Change Started a Porch Renovation

The screened porch is now my most favorite room in the house! It started with a color change and flowed from there.

I love it because not only is it a beautiful room, but it complements the interior of my home and is USEFUL! 

You can walk into my home and it is a seamless transition all the way to the screened porch itself. Lighter, brighter, and more beautiful.

The many reasons why I love the porch:

  • The color palette – Gray and Sand is so soothing.
  • It’s now an overflow entertainment space.
  • TV watching is possible “outside” making football games even better.
  • The comfy furniture is great for lounging and napping.
  • Morning coffee is now a treat in this comfortable space.
layers-of-textures-glass-round-table-orchid-blue-white-planter-round-topiary-bush-black-planter-silver-woven-rug-white-navy-pillows-min

Let’s Be Color Trailblazers and Rule Breakers!

So join me in trailblazing and breaking those decorating “rules”.

Take a chance and paint your porch a different color than the exterior of your house!

I hope you create a room you love from a simple color change.

Feeling inspired to make a change? NEED HELP WITH HOW TO START A ROOM MAKEOVER?

Please consider following me on Pinterest and Instagram for daily inspiration.

Until next time…

Porch Daydreamer

Tracey

14 Comments

  1. Hi,
    I’m getting ready to redo my screened in porch and just found this post. Your porch looks terrific!
    I have a couple of questions:
    What shade of white did you use for the trim?
    Also, is your flooring tile? I’d love to know the name if you don’t mind sharing.
    Thanks for the great ideas!

    1. Glad it helps! The tile came with the house, so sorry I don’t have any information on it. The white is Valspar Ultra White, which I used on all of my exterior trim.

  2. I am curious if you can see the porch walls from the outside of your house? My porch walls And window trim are currently the same color of the Exterior house and trim. I am wondering if it would look odd with a different color if the walls are visible- I’m thinking mine might looks like a two tone house. Can you share a picture of the exterior porch side? Thanks!

    1. Carrie, I have a privacy fence so from the street so no it’s not visible. BUT, if you could see it the colors work well together so it wouldn’t look odd. Unfortunately, I can’t really get a good picture because I have an EZE-Breeze system and it reflects the light. Direct message me through Instagram and I’ll shoot you a video so you can see OK?

      1. Rhonda Huggins says:

        I was just wondering the same, how does it look from afar. I’m considering doing the same, but wondering if it would look odd. I’m thinking no! I’m excited to move forward now that I read your post!

  3. A google search of “porch siding different color than house” brought me here. I have the same issue. Only my porch is creamy sand on the ceiling and walls which does not go with my interior. And its just too much light beige for me.

    Id love to paint it a light green gray such as Behr In the Moment (maybe lighter).
    Maybe I will start with the ceiling.

    Had wanted to take the 9 ft ceiling down and expose the huge vaulted ceiling (gabled) but Upon removing a piece of the ceiling, I found previous owners did not have it walled off to the original roof or cover the hole cut in Orginal roof for attic access that Im guessing was done for electrical but idk exactly since its a pretty large opening. Bummer.

  4. Getting Covid restless and want to paint my screened in porch. The siding color, which takes up one side of the porch most closely resembles Revere Pewter by Ben Moore. My furniture is a dark brown. It’s tranquil back there and would like a soothing, yet fairly neutral color. Also don’t know if the railing and beams around the screens should be a different color than the floor or if it should all be the same color. I am nervous about committing to a color (and cost!) for a large space, so would really appreciate any input.

    1. Lisa, I’m sorry but I can’t give you advice specific to your home. It sounds like you have a nice base to start with, so I am sure it will be beautiful.

  5. I have a dark brown home but am considering painting my porch ceiling blue-green. Will this work or will it look out of place?

  6. Thank you for the info. I was also looking for “can I paint a porch a different color than the house” I’m working on my front porch and think this would be an awesome idea. Thank you so much for the inspiration.

    1. Oh great! Glad I offered a new option and you got inspired. I’m getting a paint sprayer and plan to be doing a lot of painting projects soon!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *