Gutters and Paint

The roof edge is damaged. The fascia board is not sound in places, and I'm not sure what the flashing situation is. The gutters are not well-anchored everywhere; they are dented; they fill with debris every few months; and they drip when it rains. As calculated earlier, it's 257 LF of gutter with 8 outside corners and 2 inside corners. The 8 downspouts are okay, but they are dented as well.

The green is now Acier and the ugly wires (upper left) are gone.

I would advise a client to remove all the gutters, replace rotted fascia, repair the roof edge, paint the fascia, paint the eaves, then install all new gutters with leaf guard tops, and only then paint the walls. An old bid from LeafGuard (tm) suggests new gutters would be $13,000. (Cheap vinyl gutters from Lowe's total about $600 in materials.) I am really reluctant to remove the gutters--just the demo and hauling is a big expense, and the gutters protect the house. It's a spring-loaded expense: Pay to remove them to increase pressure to spend even more money replacing them.

The question is: Are the gutters good enough if the plan is to make the house look attractive enough to sell? I think they are, with specific improvements. I need to add gutter guards, for one thing. Likewise, the eaves are in pretty good shape--they get the least exposure to the elements--and I want to leave them bright white.

There are two shades of blue (also, the darker blue is more semi-gloss)

The photo above illustrates the problem of designing a painting plan: What gets the main color and what will contrast? We have:

• Vertical siding (Bright white)
• Horizontal siding (Blue)
• Chair rail (Darker blue)
• Door/Window trim (Blue)
• Garage doors (Bright white)
• Garage door trim (Darker blue)
• Downspouts (Blue)
• Gutters (Blue)
• Fascia board (Blue)

And bright white eaves.

Acier, with no contrast

The issue is: where do we want contrast in the exterior paint scheme? If we gray-wash everything, it's boring. I think the chair rail could be a pop of color--lime green, maybe--but I don't know about the roof edge, or the door/window trim. A classic is bright white with gray.

The garage doors represent an opportunity. Glass roll-up doors would instantly improve curb appeal, but they would cost $8,000, and the west-most door isn't needed.

A stake in the ground idea: Make the walls a neutral gray. Use a dark green for the chair rail, gutters and fascia, and a softer gray-green for the door/window trim. These elements will cast a green onto the neutral gray. Then hit the garage doors with a gray-green significantly lighter than the trim.

Okay, so this looks stupid. But I'm including it for the color swatches. 

It shows a two-tone wall, but that's just the original contrast

To play along at home, go to https://www.sherwin-williams.com/visualizer/. The Locator Number on the swatches correspond to the S-W color samples--each card is numbered sequentially, starting with 101, and the first color (farthest from the hinge) on each card is C1.

This is slightly different:

• Vertical siding (Repose Gray SW7015 244-C1)
• Horizontal siding (Repose Gray)
• Chair rail (Overt Green SW 6718 149-C5)
• Door/Window trim (Snowbound SW 7004 256-C2)
• Garage doors (Spinach White SW 6434 270-C2)
• Garage door trim (Overt Green)
• Downspouts (Repose Gray)
• Gutters (Overt Green)
• Fascia board (Overt Green)

And bright white eaves.