And the winner is....

Once we'd decided on a classic black & white colour scheme it was fairly easy choosing the right white. We knew we wanted something soft & creamy, but not too yellow.
We took a sample of our window frames and a piece of our roof to colour pros at Farrow & Ball and Benjamin Moore for their recommendations. They each suggested 2 or 3 whites that would work and 2 of them were almost exactly the same and just what we had in mind so that was settled. (Lancaster Whitewash)

The black took a little more work.

We narrowed down the suggestions from the two pros and some of our picks to four choices, painted swatches & pinned them to the house beside a swath of our chosen white.Picked our fave from those four, Wrought Iron, & Kim painted most of the front fascia boards. No go. On the colour chip it was black but on the house it changed to Navy. Very strange. One down.

Let's give the runner-up a shot: Soot, not as much blue and a little lighter.
Another gallon, another coat on the trim.

Nice, but now it's too light, almost wishy-washy. We need something stronger, darker.

Back to the stage with three new contestants: Soft Black, Black Beauty, Carbon Copy.
I was rooting for the underdog, Carbon Copy - very dark, with more than a touch of purple, but we have to go with the one that works best with all the other elements & Carbon Copy is just a little too purpley & sharp to play nice with the window frames.

So Black Beauty it is. Once on the house it's perfect. Works well with the roof, nice contrast with the windows. It doesn't have any blue tones, or purple, or brown or green.... it's just Black.

Now we have to get a couple of coats on all the fascia boards before the gutters can go on.
Oh, by the way. Our winner, Black Beauty? It wasn't one suggestioned by of either of the colour pros. Was picked by lil' old non-professional me, using the time-tested scientific method of eeny-meeny-miny-mo.