Refreshing an HOA Color Palette

An approved palette is the visual contract of a community. It is why the streets in a master-planned neighborhood look like they belong together, and why owners can repaint without the whole community turning into a patchwork. But palettes age. Colors that looked fresh when the community was built can look dated twenty years later, manufacturers retire colors, and the light in inland San Diego is hard on certain shades. At some point a board has to decide whether to refresh it.

When is it time to refresh the palette?

There are a few honest signals.

Colors have been discontinued. If owners or painters are struggling to source a color on the palette, or are relying on matches, the palette is already drifting. Every match is slightly different, and across a few hundred homes that becomes visible.

Some colors fail visibly. Certain pigments fade sooner than others under hard sun. If one scheme on the palette consistently looks chalky and washed out on south and west walls while others hold, that is information.

Owners keep asking for exceptions. A steady stream of architectural requests for colors not on the palette usually means the palette no longer reflects what people want.

The community is approaching a major repaint. If the association is about to repaint its own buildings, there is no better moment to change direction than before the first wall is washed.

Who decides, and how?

Your governing documents decide. In many communities the architectural committee proposes, the board adopts, and owners are given a chance to see and comment before anything is final. In California, the Davis-Stirling Act treats architectural standards as operating rules, so the board generally has to give owners notice of a proposed change at least 28 days before adopting it. Some documents require more formal owner involvement on top of that. Check with your manager before the committee spends months on a palette it cannot adopt.

Whatever the formal route, owners accept a palette more readily when they have seen it on a real building.

How should the committee build the new palette?

The process that tends to produce a palette people are happy with runs like this:

1. Walk the community with the current palette. Note which schemes have aged well, which have faded, and which look tired against the landscaping and the roofs. Roof tile color, stone veneer and hardscape do not change; the palette has to work with them.
2. Choose complete schemes, not colors. Body, trim, fascia, accent and door chosen together. A list of individually approved colors invites combinations nobody has looked at.
3. Think about the light. In El Cajon and the other inland valleys, deep colors run hotter and show fading sooner on sunny elevations; we have written about dark colors and inland heat separately. Near the coast, the marine layer flattens color, and a scheme that looks lively inland can look gray.
4. Specify sheen. Low-sheen or flat for stucco bodies is common; trim and doors often take a satin or semi-gloss. Sheen changes how a color reads, and two owners using the same color in different sheens will not match.
5. Sample on the building. Large sample areas on a real wall, on both a sunny and a shaded elevation, seen in the morning and late afternoon.
6. Record everything. Manufacturer, color name, color number and sheen for every surface in every scheme.

Why do samples on a wall matter so much?

Because a small chip is a poor predictor of a large wall. Color intensifies over a big area, so a chip that looks pale often looks stronger on a whole elevation. Stucco texture creates shadow and changes how a color reads compared to a smooth card. And San Diego light is not one light: a west wall at four in the afternoon and a north wall on a June morning under the marine layer can make the same color look like two different paints.

Testing on the building takes the guesswork out. It also gives the committee something to show owners, which is far more persuasive than a printed sheet.

How do you avoid matching problems later?

Record the manufacturer’s formula, not just the color name. Color names are reused and formulas are revised; a color number from a specific manufacturer is far less ambiguous. Ebenezer works with Dunn-Edwards and Sherwin-Williams, and a recorded formula from the manufacturer the palette names is what keeps each building and each phase consistent.

Keep the palette document with the architectural guidelines and the reserve study, and give a copy to every painter who works in the community, including the ones owners hire for their own homes.

How is the change phased in?

Rarely all at once. Most communities apply the new palette at each building’s or each home’s next repaint, which means the change arrives over years. The guidelines should say so clearly, and should say what happens to owners who repainted recently in an old scheme. For an association repaint, the new palette usually starts with the first phase of buildings, which is one more reason to settle it before the repaint begins.

In newer communities such as Eastlake and Otay Ranch, where homes sit close together, it also helps to say how schemes may be arranged along a street, so neighboring houses do not end up identical or clashing.

Getting the palette right before the paint

A palette refresh is a design decision, and it is also a practical one about stucco, trim and light. If your committee is starting one, Ebenezer can walk the community, apply samples where you want them, and tell you honestly how each candidate will wear on your buildings. “Paint to me is an art,” he says, and color is the part of the art that every resident sees. Ask for a free estimate for sampling or for the repaint itself, or read about HOA painting and maintenance.