Exterior Paint Standards

How does your association do it? Our small association is still working through the process of creating a standards booklet. The standards committee has just presented the board with its proposed exterior paint standard. Cool!

The committee is proposing a mandated brand and product line for paint. As a board member, I was initially fine with a mandated brand (we picked out colors from Sherwin Williams, we should use Sherwin Williams paint). I am not fine with mandating a product line eg SW Duration. Isn't this getting too specific? And, who is going to check to see if a specific product line is being used?

How does your association handle exterior painting?

Background of our neighborhood--each homeowner is responsible for the upkeep of their unit. Past paint problems occurred because we were using a custom blended color, one not found on the SW chart. We now have a palette of colors from the SW chart. I'm of the opinion the board should *recommend* the use of Sherwin Williams brand and *recommend* the use of the top product line but we should not force people.

Comments?

Paint colors should be provided as guidelines for homeowners and to be the basis for decisions by the standards committee. They should not be so strict as to eliminate any flexibility on the part of the standards committee.

Over time, color preferences change. When our subdivision was built, the developer used exterior colors that were all pale pastels. As tastes changed over time, some homeowners asked for approval of darker colors, and our architectural committee approved them when they deemed that the result would be both harmonious and good-looking.

Also, over time, the names and number designations of paint will change.

By all means create a recommended color palette from one or two paint companies that will give homeowners a guide to what is acceptable, but allow both different paint manufacturers and paint colors to be approved. The palette should be a guideline, not an absolute rule.

Thank you all. These were all reactions I had when contemplating a mandate of color, brand, and product line--liability, possibility of a new, better product coming out next year, etc.

I'll stick to my guns on this.

My townhouse community was designed using 10 specific McCormick Paints colors, in 5 combinations of 2 paint colors. Because of the Federal Fair Trade Act (1980s?), we cannot demand that homeowners use a specific paint manufacturer. So, when they need to paint, we tell them what two McCormick Paints their house's "color scheme" design uses and say they can use any manufacturer's paint as long as it is a "close match" to the original McCormick color.

P.S. I got color swatches of our 10 colors simply by emailing McCormick Paints and requesting them, so probably other manufacturers will do the same.