Exterior Colors And Design - Phoenix Edition (and some MCM)

BY FAR and I mean by super freaking far, the entry on this blog that gets the most traffic is the one on exterior house colors. Which I can only assume means a lot of you agonize over the decision about what to do on the exterior of your house. And if you've looked at my blog at all by now - I'm not a big fan of beige...or anything very boring. Which brings me to something I kind of love -

MY AWESOME NEIGHBORHOOD and MY AWESOME part of Phoenix , which is generally anything but boring.

So one day I figured I would just pop the camera in my purse and every time I saw someone with a house I especially liked something about the exterior, I would take a photo. And honestly, the ones I took are only a very SMALL fraction of the ones I could have taken - and probably will take, if I continue the project and continue to see the kind of search results that I usually do on my other exterior house color post.

So having said that, here are some really great houses I like in my 'hood. Many are MCM (mid century modern) - I would guestimate the age of most of the houses to have been built somewhere between the 1940s and the 1970s (but early 70s). Which is pretty typical of our neighborhoods in this part of Phoenix.

Enjoy, and let me know, which ones you like the most!

It's a smidge hard to tell in this photo but the green is trimmed with a purple. It's a bold idea, but it really works. It works so well, the neighbor across the street has tried to do the same thing. :)

I just really liked this because it was such a great butter cream yellow (which is NOT easy to find in the right shade) and then they went with this kind of perfect sagey green to go along with it. It's really great. The cute little metal table and chairs on the porch which are quite Mid Century Modern sort of pull it all together perfectly.

Same house - just two different angles of photos, and I really really love that green door!!!! Oh gosh I just really think it looks so great.

What's cool here is they did some sandblasting on the exterior to make it look more updated and modern and then they added the great red garage door and the side gates in red. It really works.

this house used to be hideously ugly. I can't even describe it, it was just awful. But they hired a landscape architect to come in and fix the landscaping to something more southwestern and spare and then they saved it by painting it white with all the brown trim and the great metal and glass garage door. It's like a whole new house!

It may be slightly disingenuous to use my own house but I really do like the red door with the brick and the dark trim on the eves.

These are all from houses in the same little neighborhood where they've sand blasted the exteriors to expose similar gray block walls and then added cool details with metal - or like the detail of this wall made with mesh metal and full of river bed rocks. See even the cute little birdie likes it. :)

I drive by this house about a million times a day and every single time I think "good choice on the orange fireplace dude!" They have a matching mail box.

This guy lives near me and is always remodeling. It's like this really really long on going project, but I really love all the stuff he comes up with to do with his house and it's always fun to walk past and see what he's up to lately.

This is a girl (well and a guy) I know who recently bought this house. So they are still in the middle of re-doing a lot of stuff. But I love that one of the first things she did is paint that front door bold yellow. ADORE!

Who REALLY has little picket fences in their front yards? Well these guys do. I actually know this couple too, and they have done a lot to make this little house darling. It has amazing curb appeal.

I so much love the neighborhood where all these houses are - the designs are just so uber uber cool.

do you dig that fence or what???

Who's going to put those colors together? Nobody! And if you showed some friend of yours "oh hey, look at these paint chips, here's what I'm think I'm going to do" they would give you ten kind of crap (which is why you shouldn't listen to your friends too much, unless they are amazingly cool and have awesome taste). This turned out SUPA SUPA FAB!

Same house, two views. I just can't get over how much I love this. And I wish some day someone who knew them could get me an invite inside. Because....ahhhhhhh....to DIE for...possibly my dream house.

Love the plexiglass panels outside here...

This is a green which some people might not have tried, but I have always really liked it, but what I like even more is how they paired it with that oddish orange trim. Really works for me.

Just an example of how a blue house doesn't have to look ridiculous. They CAN look cute and quaint and charming when all the right elements are in place.