The Color (& HOA) Standard

THE FUN PART… AND THE PART WITH THE HOA — Color help & HOA approval · Phoenix, Arizona

Everybody has a love-hate relationship with their HOA.

You love it when it's your neighbor's boat in their driveway getting the letter. You hate it when the envelope shows up in your mailbox. And somewhere in the middle is the reality that an HOA is the reason your street looks decent and also the reason you can't paint your house the color you actually want without asking permission first.

We're not here to fix your feelings about your HOA. We're here to handle the part that involves paint — which, it turns out, is the part that trips most people up.

The HOA Part — Told Straight

If you're repainting because your HOA sent you a letter, welcome. You're in good company: a large share of the homes we paint start with a notice and a deadline. You are not behind, you are not in trouble with us, and you are definitely not the first person this week to wave a violation letter at us. This is a Tuesday for us.

Here's the honest part most painters skip: every HOA runs its color approval differently, and some of them run it like it's designed to be difficult. Some publish an approved palette. Some make you pick from a short list. Some want a formal application with samples attached. And more and more of them run the whole thing through an online portal that only you can log into — where a contractor isn't allowed to act on your behalf, and sometimes can't even see the approved colors without your login.

We tell you this plainly because it's the part companies gloss over. A painter who promises to "handle your HOA approval" either hasn't met the portals — or isn't being straight with you. What we promise is different, and we can actually deliver it on every job: we make the color-approval part painless, whatever hoops your particular HOA makes us jump through.

What We Always Do

Flag it at the appointment. The moment we see you're in an HOA, we put the color-approval question on the table — so it's handled from day one, not discovered halfway through your job. For a lot of our customers the HOA letter is why they called us. Either way, your colors get settled and approved before we start, not after.

Get you to your palette — wherever we're allowed. If we can pull your approved colors, we do. If your HOA uses a portal only you can get into, we walk you to where the colors live and help you make sense of them. And because we've painted thousands of homes in the Valley, there's a real chance we've already worked in your community and know how its process runs. (Some of them, we know a little too well.)

Be your reference through the whole thing. Questions about sheen, about what a color actually looks like at full size, about what the HOA's language even means — you've got a company that's painted Phoenix exteriors since 2006 to ask, not a paint-store counter and a shrug.

Never start until the color's settled. Your chosen, approved color goes in writing on your proposal before the job begins. The color you approved is the color that goes on the wall. No drift, no "close enough."

We're Never the Reason You'd Rush This

Here's the quiet advantage of hiring a company that stays busy: there's always time to get your color right before we start. Our schedule is never the thing pushing you to decide before you're ready. If you want your HOA approval in hand before we begin, we wait — and there's room to wait. It's your home and your call. You will never hear us pressure you to start before your color is chosen and cleared, because a repaint rushed to beat a schedule is exactly how you end up with a color you regret or a violation notice anyway. This is the color-specific version of a promise we make across your whole job: no pressure, ever.

Now the Fun Part: Actually Picking the Color

Getting HOA approval is half the job. The other half is landing on a color you'll still be happy to look at in ten years — which, let's be honest, is where the real drama lives.

You know the routine. Fifteen little swatches taped to the wall. The one you loved in the store that turned faintly alien at 4pm. The spouse who "doesn't care" right up until you pick one. Choosing an exterior color is genuinely fun and genuinely nerve-wracking at the same time, because it's a big surface, a long commitment, and it looks different in every light.

So we give you three ways to get it right, from a quick phone call to the full professional treatment. Pick the one that fits how much help you want.

Option 1 — Just need a little advice? Call Kim. Kim Ricker — Owner / CFO — has spent 15 years helping homeowners think through exterior color, and she's genuinely happy to do it over the phone. If you're mostly there and just want a second opinion — is this too dark for the sun, will these two colors fight, does the trim work — that's a conversation, not a consultation, and it doesn't cost you anything. Kim doesn't do formal renderings or palette build-outs, but for straight-up honest advice from someone who's done this for 15 years, she's a phone call away.

Option 2 — Want hands-on help in person? The free Dunn-Edwards in-store consultation. Dunn-Edwards offers a no-cost, in-store color consultation that runs about an hour. You sit down with someone who knows the color line and can help you narrow things down, and the consultation itself doesn't cost you anything. We'll give you the scheduling link and a little advice on how to make the most of it before you go.

One tip we always pass along: get samples, but don't paint a test patch on your house. The smarter move is a movable sample — the peel-and-stick sample kits let you carry a real coated swatch from wall to wall and see your color in the morning light, the afternoon glare, and the shade, without committing paint to your stucco. It's the easiest way to catch the color that looks perfect on one elevation and completely different on another.

Option 3 — Want the full treatment? The in-home exterior consultation. (This is the best way to go.) This is the one we recommend when you want it done right. A Dunn-Edwards Professional Color Advisor comes to your home, works with your actual light, your finishes, and your surroundings, and builds a palette for your whole exterior — body, fascia, trim, accents, and front door. You get a couple of samples to live with and digital renderings of your actual home in your chosen colors, so you're painting from a plan instead of a hope. Because they know the Dunn-Edwards line inside out, they'll also keep you inside your HOA-approved palette.

It's a 90-minute service — a pre-consult plus an hour at your home. Dunn-Edwards' posted rate is $229, paid directly to them. But because you've signed with us, you get it for $159. We make the introduction ourselves and set the whole thing up, and your final colors flow straight into your proposal and job file. The reduced rate is our thank-you for trusting us with the job — it's available after signing, and it is, hands down, the most confident way to choose an exterior color.

(Pricing is set by Dunn-Edwards, dunnedwards.com, and subject to change. Ask us for current details.)

One piece of advice we give no matter which route you choose: mind the sun. Darker, low-LRV colors hold less pigment in reserve and show fade sooner under the Phoenix sun; lighter, higher-LRV colors hold their look longer. Whichever way you go — Kim, in-store, or in-home — we'll tell you honestly where your favorites fall, so you're choosing with the desert in mind and not just the swatch in your hand.

Once It's Settled, It Stays Settled

When your color is chosen and approved, we record the exact name and formula in your job file and keep it retrievable for up to ten years. We label your touch-up paint with it and leave that with you at completion. If you ever need more — a touch-up, an addition, a repair down the road — the match is already on file. The color you worked to get right doesn't have to be figured out twice.

The fun part should feel fun. The HOA part should feel handled. That's the whole idea.