Painting the barrels is a great idea, Jeff although I don't find mine too intrusive looking. These are newly installed as the old ones had settled somewhat and were not standing up straight.
Showing you the support stands we made for these out of pavers and cinder blocks. Be sure they are level and well seated or they will tip, and a full rain barrel weighs 400-odd pounds. It's important that they are raised up off the ground because the barrels let water out via gravity feed, and if they're sitting on the ground, you can't get all the water out of them without a pump. I had my husband plumb them in tandem with two faucets like this because now it only takes half the time to fill a watering can.
Here's the old rain barrel, moved to a new location. Be aware also of where the runoff will go after your barrel is full - this one drains into a stand of bamboo that happily slurps it up.
I also have two 550 gal. cisterns out the back of the shop that are used for irrigating my edibles in the winter. Sadly, even those get used up fairly quickly if we have a run of dry weather in the fall. The fatal flaw of rain barrels - they run out and are not replenished when you need them the most!
