You can also find inspiration driving through suburbs with houses similar to your own and sifting through magazines. Another pleasant source of inspiration for your choice of house color is your garden. If you have a beautiful color scheme in the flowers you have planted you might want to copy this scheme in some way in your choice of main color or in one of your trims. The reason lighter colors are so often used for houses is because lighter colors make a house seem larger. Painting the sideboards a dark color will make a house seem smaller although it can draw more attention to details.
Most houses have one main color for the sideboards and then two to five trim colors.
How many trim colors you want to have will depend on the size of your house and the number of details you want to accentuate. You may have wondered why window sashes are so often white. Perhaps you have considered painting them a different color to be original. Windows painted in colors other than white or off white will absorb heat very quickly causing the paint to crack. You can paint the border around the window sashes any color you like or just paint the trim on the bottom of the window a different color.