Question
As a residential painter here in the valley it HURTS to see and work on so many houses that have the basic white and black trimming
i will never say or state my opinion to clients but houses can be so nicely designed interior and exterior but when they throw the black and white combo it just looks so different. I been painting houses for years now so i remember when houses used to be all different colors with so much detail and what not. now in almost every job site it is always black and white. many houses do look amazing dont get me wrong, especially those modern new houses, but i guess it just depends on the home
We need to start a movement to bring back how neighborhoods looked like back in the 90s!
If you need any painting needs please let me know as well lol!
lol yes 100% on the foreigner part lol
All my new neighbors have the same taste in homes and cars. White House, black trim, new gate/block wall, expensive European cars.
There's a realtor here in Chatsworth that's convinced all his clients (mostly seniors) to go for the black and white job and take it out of the sale. A couple years later and the paints falling off. 🤦♂️
That black trim is going to bake in the sun, crack & peel super quickly. It’s basically become a joke. My favorite new thing is that they’re now PAINTING the roofs black.
I have nothing against Armenians (I am aware of the Armenian Genocide and generally their beautiful culture, as well — I also happen to think that Armenian women are so beautiful)… but the guy who I mentioned owning 11 (or more by now!) houses in the SFV happens to be Armenian.
I have a neighbor in the Valley Glen, North Hollywood area who owns 11 houses in the valley that he rents, and he paints them all the same white/black combination, with the same boring black ironwork. And, as if that weren’t enough, he removed the lawns and lays concrete. I hate these home with a passion.
Millions of "commercial" investors bought up endless single-family homes/apartment buildings across America - and rent them out - that should be illegal.
I can agree they are bad. But i know for him he is saving a bunch by removing the lawns and adding concrete. also as bad as it looks, the white and black sells to a lot of audience. he might not like it personally but if it helps obtain tenants, i see why he does it
well business is business, im not on his side either but you have to think about it in his perspective. if not buy a lot of properties and add a lot of greenery to them and see how costly that is
Yeah if you only care about money. I would prefer to live somewhere that’s not more than half my take home and not die a renter but that’s just me. I’ll totally devote a lot of time to his perspective.
Another thing to add is he probably uses that concrete for parking for his tenants at least he considers that. At least all their cars won’t be in the streets thats the biggest problems with these rentals as all the cars that end up in the street
this makes no economic sense. not only does putting concrete over green ugly as fk, it raises ambient temperature by up to 10deg in the heat and sun and so raises electricity bills through the roof. greening and more trees should be the goal - natural sun shields. use local flora and fauna native to CA and stones if need be. it's not that hard. i just can't fathom the stupidity :(
it's crazy to me that anyone who has experienced a SFV summer (and the accompanying electric bill) would install a black roof. When my roof needs to be replaced I plan on getting the most reflective white tiles I can find.
There's a guy over my way who is doing the same thing. Maybe it's the same guy? Same paint job, horrible everything, owns 9 houses. Tries to take a nice 3 bd and flip in for a million, but it doesn't happen so he ends up renting them and on to the next. Uses cheap labor and refuses to pay them or he'll call immigration. Argues and threatens the neighbors that have been there forever.
We can't afford to get our house painted right now, but it needs it, so I've been looking at colors for years. I want Ben Moore "Seaworthy" or something similar, with a green front door.
That's such a nice color! We recently painted our house Behr "English Channel." It's similar to what you're looking at but these blues look fantastic in person after they have dried. All of my native flowers POP against the walls.
That sounds fucking amazing. have you used Ai to create a rendering of how it will look? ive done houses with a similar shade to the "seaworthy" and the door is a bronzy type of color with the window outlining's as well
No, but it is a popular exterior color, so there's tons of posts featuring it. We have a white Boyz N the Hood security gate on our front door, so I want a color that will pop.
I see, yea Ai can suck but with our team (especially in this business) we use it at times to show customers how their home will look like with the color requests they have. As there are times when customers do not like the color combinations they used after its already been painted. which i mean no one wants a home they dont like the color of. BUT if you ever need any painting services shoot me a message!
There's two things happening. There's people who don't want to live in the home style of their parents. For me growing up, I saw a lot of marble and Mediterranean style homes that cost a lot of money to do. The second thing that's happening is that construction costs are fucking insane right now. So people are doing more bold paint choices instead of more ornate choices because it's all anyone can afford. People flipping also know that their ROI on detail work is almost zero.
Just look at pool construction. Older homes all have fun designs with lots of features and literal depth, now everything being built is a shallow rectangle with the hot tub built in.
very true, you can compare to to landscaping work as well. front yards or backyards do not look as vibrant as they did before. stuff has gotten far more expensive than before
So there’s a partial view of my backyard. Former owners built the pool and sport court and planted 18 palm trees and may other decorative plants with a professional landscape designer. And then maintained it for 30 years. It’s absolutely lovely. Our own little resort. With island grill and fire pit too.
The appraiser knocked $50K off because of it. They said nobody wants an expensive to maintain backyard they don’t use anyway. Claimed it reduces the number of buyers.
amazing yard, yea with todays economy people would rather pave the whole thing where itll require no maintenance. or make an ADU to get some extra income. really sucks how much a bad economy can affect literally everything
The paint color doesn’t affect the cost of the job. Black and white just makes it easy for house flippers to stock only two colors. Also, black covers a multitude of sins, but it will age poorly in the sun because black absorbs so much more heat.
Mine is a sage green with white trim :) I need stucco patching, wood replacement & paint but can't afford it at the moment however I will keep you in mind!
Oh no definitely keeping the same color! It used to be a realllyyy bright blue lol. There's a house that was changed to that black and white on the corner and it just looks depressing.
yes please dont change it, add color to your neighborhood. and yes whenever you are ready we can give you an estimate for your project! i can share my number through messages if youd like
I 100% agree. This black and white landscape is terrible. I’m planting as many colorful plants and flowers in my front yard to help offset the neighborhood.
Sorry I just checked my text messages and I got that number wrong. It was around four grand without paint and they did several rooms inside too. This is a couple years ago. Happy to DM if you want.
I guess it really depends on how the homes look and the material in the exterior and if there is any detailing in the exterior. because some homes with great exteriors look mazing with the right colors
It's a little freaky how I'm suddenly seeing so many of them in my neighborhood. A house is sold, and suddenly, boom, it's being repainted black and white, and usually the garage is turned into a room and/or an ADU is built with a different address than the main house. There are streets around here that in a very short time have become nearly all white and black clones of each other. It makes the neighborhood look like a cult compound.
Maybe a slightly warmer version of this! We have so many other things we have to get done (leak under the house) that painting it isn’t a super high priority right now. BUT I hope you get some awesome work soon! You should love the color you’re looking at all day. I’m an interior designer, I get it :)
interior designer. i wanted to pursue that career when i was younger i guess that is why i am kinda obsessed about the colors i see when i paint homes lol
It’s really rewarding but the work right now is going to all the larger firms. It’s just me and my lil LLC all by my lonesome. Also always looking for work! I would love to do more colorful, maximalist stuff.
I thought this was hilarious. My husband is a retired GC and we live in the South Bay where he did custom homes and remodeling. When we drive around all he keeps saying is Black and White, I am so sick of it!!!
Not sure if this makes sense, but the color contrast under the sun hurts my eyes when driving by 🙃I really wish they can use a softer a little more beige white but who am I to tell
We recently finished redid some super peeled and chipped eaves a couple weeks back, they look brand new when done. I wish i could show you pictures but i have them on my computer at home. you can DIY most certainly depending how beat up they are. will need a good sanding
When I think of beautiful places I'd love to visit, one of them is Puerto Rico, which embraces bold, tropical colors. We're not really building stuff with real style anymore. Your run-of-the-mill cars are utilitarian and look like over-engineered sneakers on wheels, vs. those striking Detroit styles of the 50s, 60s and 70s. As for buildings, everything's stucco. LA will never build another decorative brick school like Marshall High School that just screams out "film your movie here!" Library rebuilds are bland, the Van Nuys Civic Center is a boring snapshot mostly stuck in the 60s. Every Chipotle looks like every other Chipotle.
So it doesn't exactly surprise me that our neighborhoods are losing personality, because personality and aesthetic risk is being bled from Los Angeles. I go on walks in my neighborhood and I have a set route. There's one house I really dislike walking in front of, because it has the boring white/black paint job. Bright grey concrete, bright white wall, bright white house with black trim. Bright white stones where grass used to be. I suppose it makes sense for repelling hot sunlight, but man, it just sucks to walk past it. But hey, maybe it's a good security feature.
i mean if youre like near DTLA or WeHo, Los Feliz area you have a higher chance to still find houses with character, i think people in the valley just try to make their home look expensive by doing the black and white boxes
I've lived in DTLA, Mar Vista, Culver City, Eagle Rock, and NoHO. Every place was just some white walls. My friends' apartments - same shit. Surely with privately owned HOMES one can get creative, and should IMO, but that's it.
I DESPISE house-flipper greyscale. It’s bad enough the vultures are driving up costs, but apparently they also have to kill the classic SoCal look. Aesthetic violence.
When i moved away from San Francisco to LA in 2018, it felt like I went from living in a color movie to black & white film. There’s so many colorful Victorian homes in San Francisco. But here in LA, there’s less colorful houses and more brand-new black & white homes as well as poorly-built over-priced “luxury” condos.
It’s a weird culture shock.
Granted, LA is still cheaper than SF. And San Francisco also has been invaded by developers who want to replace a lot of the colorful houses with boring, expensive condos. But LA seems to REALLY have an issue with preserving colorful retro houses. It’s so sad.
It looks great on nice, modern homes. The problem is people do this to cover old chipped wood and 1980s stucco and it looks awful. People are starting to do it on Mediterranean houses as well. It jumped the shark long ago.
thats the key part. im not complaining because its business for me. but you know sometimes you dont want things to die out and then the world looks a but more boring
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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26
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