neighbours, etiquette, and painting a semi wwyd?

[hatwoman]

we're having the outside of our house painted. because it's a semi and because the neighbours are having work done and are painting theirs soon too we chatted to them and agreed it would be nice to have both the same colour. Problem is we're in favour of different colours (albeit not radically different). now I don't know what to do and i'm kind of wishing we'd never asked - I think I'd prefer ours to be the colour we like more than I'd like them both to be the same iyswim. but dh and I always go for the easy life on things like this and back down and compromise etc. but for once I'm not sure I feel like being the easy-going ones.... but on the other hand can I really say to the neighbours "we know we asked your opinion and we know you like x but we're going for y anyway" not sure I've got it in me. oh pants.

[maidamess]

Why can't you have your own colours? As long as the line down the middle is straight.

On that sarah beany prog, where she did a whole street up, the semi's often had diff. colour fronts.

[hatwoman]

well now I know we don;t want the same I agree! it's just that we had teh conversation "it would be nice to do them the same" and it would feel like going back on that - not sure how much it would annoy them....I'm crap at this stuff...

[Dropdeadfred]

Paint it your colour and say you thought they'd chosen to match you...?

[ChippyMinton]

Are the colours complementary? What about woodwork? Tricky to go back on your agreement. Must admit I find it quite hard to visualise what the finished colour will look like. I might be inclined to go with their choice and then have the satisfaction of making it their fault if I didn't like it

[Fizzylemonade]

We had this with our front door, it had two glass panes and they were edged in a frame that was painted white and our door was a vibrant green. The neighbours had the same doors, one side had bright red and the other had bright blue. So when we repainted we kept to the same racing green with the white trim despite not liking it because it complimented the neighbouring houses.

The upstairs of our houses were all painted the same colour but we were detached.

I think as long as your colours are complimentary then it won't matter.

What has everyone else on your road got? Maybe you could look and then report back to your neighbours saying "well number 42 and 44 have different shades and I think that looks great" and see what they say!

[hatwoman]

i've been looking at semis all day today - and it does look fine when they're different. we're the only painted semi on the street so nothing in the immediate vicinity to compare it with.

[Pannacotta]

I think it will look fine to have it a different colour as long as it will look ok with the neighbour's choice.
You can just tell them you had a change of heart, or if you feel funny saying that, then how about blaming your DH and saying he insisted you had x colour rather than y?