At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s hard to find the best paint color for your house’s exterior. White is a classic, but choose the wrong shade and you’ll end up with a very expensive mistake. We wanted to take the guesswork out of choosing the best white paint for your house, so we asked the architect and designer members of our Professional Directory to share their vetted shades of exterior white paint. They’ve painted countless houses over the years, and know what works. Here, they generously share their 10 favorites. What’s your go-to shade of white paint? Tell us in the comments below. Swatch photographs by Katie Newburn for Gardenista. Above: Top row, left to right: Benjamin Moore Brilliant White; Benjamin Moore Simply White; Farrow & Ball All White; Benjamin Moore White Heron. Bottom row: Sherwin-Williams Pure White; Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee; Benjamin Moore Linen White; Porter Paints Atrium White; and Benjamin Moore Cloud White. Above: On this house in Connecticut, Brooklyn-based O’neill Rose Architects used low-luster Benjamin Moore Brilliant White, which principal Devin O’Neill calls “a standard that always looks good.”

The firm worked with Donald Kaufman on the palette for the house, and chose Donald Kaufman Color DKC-44 in semi-gloss for the porch and ceiling. Above: Interior designer Meg Joannides of MLK Studio in LA recently completed this Brentwood Park home. On the exterior, she used Sherwin-Williams Pure White, a true white that barely hints toward warm. The charcoal gray shutters are painted in Benjamin Moore Onyx. Above: Architect Tim Barber chose Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee for this new house in Santa Monica. The color is also a favorite of SF Bay Area–based designer Nicole Hollis. Above: Donald Billinkoff of Billinkoff Architecture in NYC rarely uses any other white than Benjamin Moore White Heron. Says Billinkoff, “In bright light it is warm and in low light it is bright.” Above: NYC-based 2Michaels worked with midcentury antiques dealer Larry Weinberg in choosing Benjamin Moore Simply White for this outdoor room on Martha’s Vineyard. Interior designer Kriste Michelini also recommends this shade.

Above: LA-based DISC Interiors painted the exterior of this Loz Feliz home in Crystal Haze from Dunn-Edwards. christmas tree decoration picture frameThis shade has the deepest tan inflection of the paints recommended here.decorate your room blog Above: SF Bay Area designer Nicole Hollis chose Farrow & Ball All White as her pick–the whitest white of our recommendations. the best paint for exteriorIn this image from Farrow & Ball, the door and metalwork are painted in Pitch Black.christmas yard decorations made in usa

Above: Nashville architect Marcus DiPietro chose PPG Porter Paints Atrium White for the exterior of this modern, Japanese-influenced home in Oak Hill, Tennessee. who sells the best exterior paintNext to Linen White (below), Atrium White is the second warmest of the bunch.home decor los angeles Above: NYC-based Steven Harris Architects painted this Upper West Side townhouse in Benjamin Moore’s Cloud White. Photograph by Elizabeth Felicella. Above: SF Bay Area-based landscape architecture firm Pedersen Associates admires Benjamin Moore’s Linen White, shown here on a house in Mill Valley. Says principal Pete Pedersen, “Here in Northern California, the quality of light is such that you need to take a little off of the whites to keep from too much reflective glare.”

Linen White is the warmest of the 10 whites shown here. Looking for a shade of white to paint an indoor room? See 10 Easy Pieces: Architects’ White Paint Picks. We also consulted architects for their picks for exterior shades of gray and black. This is an update of a post originally published September 11, 2013. ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,Glidden® Premium Exterior Semi-Gloss Paint All Glidden Premium latex exterior paints Resists harmful UV rays and fading Can withstand severe weather conditions Resists mildew, stains and dirt on the dry paint film Can be applied in temperatures as low as 35° F Are splatter-resistant (so the paint stays on the roller, not on you) Back to Glidden® Premium Collection Exterior House PaintIn my old NYC apartment, most of the rooms were a rich butter yellow, one bathroom was green (I wouldn’t do that again though because in the morning, in the mirror, faces looked green too), the hallway was persimmon, and the dining room was papaya.

In this house, most of the rooms are yellow, but the living room is a sort of moss green (which will be yellow this winter when we have the time), we had a red room for a while (it’s blue now), and the front door has been aubergine for the past year. I’ve been thinking about exterior paint colors for the new house for a while. Our current house has been white with green trim since Tom bought it 20 years ago. But white isn’t the best color for a house in a climate where there’s white all over, highlighted by “bare tree brown”, from October or November until April — too much unrelieved white is dreary. Many of the older houses in our area are white, and the new ones are equally dreary, with dark taupe-ish tones (very similar to that bare tree brown), which Tom and I don’t like at all. I’ve been considering a dark mossy green for a while, and last summer a new house in town was finished in a lovely shade, and I think the siding is HardiPlank. It’s something like Moss Landing or Grape Leaves below;