Choosing blue for your home’s exterior can be a beautiful move, but it’s not as simple as grabbing your favorite swatch. The right blue can create anything from a timeless, welcoming look to a fresh, modern statement, but exterior light presents a whole different ballgame. Colors that feel just right indoors can shift dramatically in bright sunlight, sometimes appearing much stronger than expected. So I’ve taken out the guesswork for you.
In this list, I share my five favorite Valspar blue exterior paint colors, which you can find at any location of Lowe’s. If you’re open to other paint brands, check out all of my top exterior blue paint colors.
Valspar Cornflower Blue
First, let’s start with one of Valspar’s most popular exterior blues… Valspar Cornflower Blue. It’s a beautiful medium-dark blue with a Light Reflectance Value (LRV) of 20, meaning that it reflects 20% of the light that hits its surface. Because of this, it will appear more like a medium blue in strong sunlight and dark blue in the shadows. It has a gray undertone that keeps it from looking too vibrant outdoors, but it still has enough blue pigment to read as a true blue no matter the lighting. This is a beautiful choice, especially when paired with white trim like on the home above.
Valspar Pulitzer Blue
If you like the lightness of Cornflower Blue but just want something with a little bit more punch of color, look no further than Valspar Pulitzer Blue. With an LRV of 22, it’s just a hair lighter than Cornflower Blue and more pigmented. This is a great option if you want to make a bolder statement with your exterior color or if you live in an area with mostly cloudy weather, which can make less pigmented blues look more like gray.
Valspar Night View
Speaking of bold statements, let’s take a look at Valspar Night View. This blackened blue has a touch of warmth and enough pigment to not appear too much like charcoal. With an LRV of just 7, this is the darkest and most dramatic option of the bunch and would pair beautifully with dark roofing and woodwork, like on the home above.
Valspar Cafe Blue
If you’re looking for a lighter blue option, try Valspar Cafe Blue. This beautiful blue-green-gray has an LRV of 29, which means that it will appear like a very light blue in direct sunlight and more of a medium-dark blue in the shade, as you can see on the home above. This is close to the higher end of the LRVs I recommend for exterior colors in sunny areas, as once you get lighter, the color will become washed out to look like white in direct sun. For a similar shade with less green, try Valspar Silver Fox.
Valspar Pacific Palisades
And finally, we have Valspar Pacific Palisades. This beautiful green-gray-blue is almost a perfect match for the siding color of my parents’ home featured above, which is BEHR Juniper Ash. They have the same LRV of 22 and almost exactly the same color ratio. This is a beautiful teal blue with enough gray to appear muted and sophisticated even in bright direct sunlight. It would pair beautifully with creamy white trim or dark contrast trim, like on my parents’ home above.
I hope this guide was helpful to you as you search for your perfect blue exterior paint color! For more free color suggestions, check out the rest of my favorite paint colors.
