The Curious Thing About White Farmhouses

I have recently been assigned the excruciating job of selecting a trim color for our white farmhouse.

Who gave me this task? I did.

Who decided I was qualified? No one.

Who will be upset if I pick the wrong color? Me.

I make a million decisions (give or take) a day. Why is picking one paint color so difficult?

I have picked baby names faster than I’ve picked a trim color.

Not even joking.

Anyway, in all of my research (aka Googling and walking around the towns near me), I noticed a curious thing about white farmhouses.

Not always, but often, the accent color of a white farmhouse comes from its shutters, not its trim.

For instance, the house will have white siding, white trim, and colored shutters.

I’d estimate this accounts for 75% of homes painted white.

Don’t believe me? The next time you go for a walk or drive around the country, pay attention to the white houses and let me know how accurate my paint theory is.

The shutters on a white farmhouse are almost always black or green, by the way.

There aren’t any new housing developments near me, so my observation is mainly for old farmhouses or old homes in general that are painted white.

My brain equated trim and shutter color to be the same when it came to white farmhouses. It’s like this weird optical illusion where my brain filled in some details that were not there. I wonder where else my brain is doing this?

Does this revelation help me pick a trim color?

No. It does not.

Why?

Because I have been thinking about leaving off our shutters.

They aren’t original or even old, unless 30 years is old to you. If that’s the case, I’m going to have to ask you to put yourself in timeout for a decade or so.

Do I want an all white farmhouse with no shutters?

If our roof was a different color, our front porch was brick or stone, and we had copper gutters, then maybe. All of those changes would take time though.

I do like a crisp, clean all-white farmhouse. It appeals to my need for order and tidiness.

What will I end up selecting for our trim color? Not sure.

When will I end up making a decision? Also not sure. Could be tomorrow. Could be ten years from now.

I do know I’m in the messy middle of a creative process and I probably shouldn’t torture myself further by exposing that fact on the internet. Yet here we are.

I’m going to go put myself in timeout until I learn better or make a trim color decision.

Have you noticed the curious thing about white farmhouses that I’ve noticed? Let me know if I my paint theory holds true where you live. Please leave a comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.

Hope you have a happy day. May the paint choices ever be in your favor.

P.S. The photos in today’s blog post were ones I snapped on a recent walk. Here is how our house is looking today sans shutters.

Thanks for being here today! I love dishing all the over-thinking that I do on any given subject with you. Haven’t had enough? I have more blog posts for you!

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