Looking At the Neighbors: Critiquing the Paint Designs at Milano and Expressions

 I thought it would be useful to provide some more comments about the paint designs being used by our neighbors at Expressions and Milano. 

In some ways, Expressions is a botched paint job. The black balcony railings look good, and so do the dark-colored doors. These were both good design choices. The dark-colored doors are visually interesting, and create more volume in the look. The railings aren't attractive and are properly de-emphasized. The problem with Expression, in my view, is it was a mistake to paint the trim darker than the walls on a number of the buildings. This is what is giving them that blocky institutional look...sort of like a set of college dorms. In addition, the lighter-colored buildings are too washed out. The pinkish and cream-colored buildings seem especially bad to me. 

Milano is also botched and amateur-looking in many ways as well. I've already mentioned that the painting of the garage trim is a mistake. The design calls attention to one of their most attractive features, rows of similar garage doors. By highlighting the trim around the garages they called attention to one of the least attractive aspects of the complex. 

There are also numerous errors at Milano, particularly with the lighter buildings on which they painted darker trim. I certainly recommend that Del Prado study up on our neighbors and that we hire a competent designer who can help us create a better design that will help us look better than either Milano or Expressions. 

I am enjoying your phone calls and design tips. Please call me anytime at 949-338-5921. I'll put this article on my business blog too in case it is censored. 

Unfortunately, it looks like a small number of our neighbors are pushing through the blah, 1980s style paint schemes they seemingly prefer without first doing the proper thing which would be to interview three designers, tour their projects, and then choose the one who is best for us. If they are allowed to continue on this path, I'm afraid they will cost some of us up to $35,000 apiece in lost valuation. 

I should add that we need to deal with the disgusting, underlying wood rot and moisture issues on the roofs before we even think of repainting the roof trim. That would be a monumental financial mistake. We need to stabilize the moisture content of the trim before we even consider repainting it. The installation of moisture barriers would do the trick. Given the underlying structural issues of the roof, I think we have plenty of time to slow down, educate ourselves on color theory and design. Once everyone is up to speed, we should interview a number of competent designers and then pick the one that will do a world-class job we can be proud of.