Exterior Paint Color for Four Gables

We’ve finally started painting Four Gables, and I wanted to tell you about how we decided on the final exterior white paint color!

I shared the top 10 exterior white paints in this post, and I narrowed my favorite down to these four:

• SW Alabaster
• SW Snowbound
• Behr Swiss Coffee
• BM White Dove

I was so excited when I put the swatches on the siding, and immediately I was leaning toward Alabaster.

I put swatches on the back porch siding, the sides of the house, and the siding under the front porch…and I would check them at different times during the day to see if the color changed any.

Each time I looked at the paint colors, I kept being drawn to Alabaster. I knew Snowbound was brighter than I wanted and actually had a little bit of a pink undertone to it at certain times of the day. (The sun rises on our front porch and sets on our back porch.)

I liked Swiss coffee, especially on the inspiration I saw online, but it was looking a little too creamy and had stronger yellow undertones than I wanted. A lot of people on instagram kept saying to use White Dove, which I had used on my Kentucky home…but I was still leaning toward Alabaster. I had seen it on other Four Gables homes, and I just knew it was the one.

So Cy bought a 5 gallon bucket to begin with, and started painting the side of the house. He had a small window of good weather to try and paint one side, and I was dying to see it up on the house!

Immediately, when he painted the first exterior wall, my heart sunk. It read more yellow to me. It was ever so subtle, but I could really see the yellow undertones, which I didn’t want.

The sun was setting at the back of the house, which is the left side of the photo below, and it was causing the inset exterior wall to look yellow compared to the jut-out wall that had windows…

Cy continued to paint more of the house with Alabaster, and even the gables, and I was hoping maybe it would grow on me. But the more I looked at it, the more I knew it wasn’t the “white” I was hoping for.

I started scouring the internet for more inspiration and shared my paint dilema with my instagram followers, and one of them shared this blog post from Home and Hallow with me to see if it would help… AND IT DID!

(Side note: This blog and instagram account are so good! Casey is super talented and does beautiful work! Go give her a follow HERE.)

The whole blog post was about a family that was painting the farmhouse white, and they had all but decided on Alabaster until they realized that the yellow undertones were a bit too much for them. So they went up one color white on the Sherwin Williams color swatch to Pure White, and it was PERFECT!

So I went and got a sample of Pure White and put it next to Alabaster on my wall swatch…

I could immediately tell that Pure White had less yellow undertones compared to Alabaster. I started to get excited that Pure White might be the winner.

I found this image here…

I also screenshot the image below, but can’t find the original source. I loved that it said Pure White was a “slightly lighter version of Alabaster” and that it still had a little bit of yellow undertone to keep it from being to stark or bright.

So I was feeling pretty confident about choosing Pure White, and went to Lowe’s to get a 5 gallon bucket of it. Cy said only get one 5 gallon bucket in case I change my mind. haha! #heknowsmewell

I can tell you that as soon as Cy started painting Pure White on our home, I was in love. It was PERFECT! It didn’t feel too bright. It still felt somewhat warm, but it was exactly what I pictured in my mind.

When he painted the bottom with Pure White over the Alabaster, it was easy to see that the gable with Alabaster only was slightly more yellow. Can you see it?

Cy continued to paint the bottom of the house on the front and back porch, and it looked so good. It’s been on our house for several weeks now, and I love it at all times of the day.

We haven’t had warm enough weather since then to finish painting the house, so we are only about half way finished. As soon as we get better weather, we will paint the right side of the house and the gables.

I took this picture of our home last night on our walk, and it looked so pretty up on the hill.

When we are finished painting the rest of the house Pure White, I will be sure to share all of it! But for now we are covered in snow, so Cy is working on the inside of the house. He’s finishing the framing on our master bathroom, mud room, and pantry today. yay!!

Love and Blessings,

Traci