Choosing the Perfect White Farmhouse Exterior Paint Color

Sherwin williams exterior white paint samples

Things are moving so quickly at the house, and probably the most exciting thing so far (but also the most difficult!) was choosing the perfect white paint color!

Picking the perfect white is, well… hard! There are so many options and they all look different on different homes and in different lighting depending on the direction your home faces.

I wanted a true, bright white…. but also with just a hint of softness to it. Not too stark or cold, but also not too warm that it leans yellow.

After scouring Pinterest and Instagram (the best sources for seeing paint colors on real homes!) and polling Instagram, I narrowed it down to four exterior white paint colors to sample.

I figured I would start with four samples – enough to give me an idea of the direction I wanted to go – but not too many as to overwhelm me!

Also, be sure to label your lids and your paint cans! It’s guaranteed that you will get them mixed up 🙂

CHoosing the perfect exterior white paint color

The four white paint samples we chose were (as pictured above from left to right):

• Sherwin Williams Greek Villa
• Sherwin Williams SnowBound
• Sherwin Williams Pure White
• Sherwin Williams Alabaster

Even sampling paint colors can be tricky: painting a tiny sample area really doesn’t give you any more information than the tiny color swatch that you pick up at the store. Be sure to paint a large sample size.

We chose to paint an initial sample size of approximately 2′ x 4′ on the front of our house. We used painter’s tape to label each paint color with both the name and the number that corresponded to the number on the paint can.

Just trust me on this one: label, label, label! You will get them mixed up, and when sampling such similar colors it can be impossible to tell them apart.

Hubby painted while the boys played in the dirt on their new excavators they got for Christmas 🙂

And I stood back and started examining the paint colors from every angle!

The best Sherwin williams exterior white paint colors

I didn’t not edit the photo above, so it’s a true representation of the colors straight from my phone.

Almost immediately I eliminated Greek Villa. For some reason it was reading “pink” on our house (could have been the reflection of the unfinished porch ceiling above).

As for the remaining three, I really liked all of them!

I kept standing back, looking, moving to different angles, looking again. I tried to not read too much into it and just go with my first impression – your gut instinct is usually right!

At that point I narrowed it down to Pure White and Alabaster (the bottom two). There was nothing I didn’t like about Snowbound, but for some reason I kept being drawn to the bottom two.

How to sample exterior paint colors

Once we narrowed it down to two colors, we sampled both paint colors on different sides of the house, in different lighting, and at different times of the day. The direction your home faces will play a huge part in how the color reads. North facing homes will draw out cooler undertones, while homes in direct sunlight will look warmer.

Truth be told, I went into this practically convinced that I wanted to go with Alabaster sight unseen. It is such a beautiful, popular white paint color that looks good practically anywhere! Out of all the houses I looked at on Pinterest and Instagram, I was drawn to Alabaster the most.

Buuuut, once I got it up on the back side of our house in the sunlight, it looked yellow.

Pure White on the top, Alabaster on the bottom.

Be sure to sample the paint color in both the sun and the shade!

Pure White on the left, Alabaster on the right.

Just to be certain of our decision we painted two large areas of both Pure White and Alabaster on the front side of the house again.

Isn’t it crazy? On the front of the house they look practically identical. But on the back of the house they look so different.

At this point we were pretty convinced that Pure White was our color, but we slept on it a few days just to be certain 🙂 I came out to the house a few more times to look at the different paint colors and each time I was more certain that Pure White was our winner.

The Perfect White farmhouse exterior paint color

We chose Sherwin Williams Pure White, and in my opinion it is the perfect traditional farmhouse white. It is a true, bright white, has just enough softness to it that it doesn’t look harsh – but it also doesn’t look yellow. White farmhouse perfection!

“Come now, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow” Isaiah 1:18