Home Help
Choosing External Colours and Tones
Khalil Hegarty

Colorbond steel is ubiquitous. According to Colorbond manufacturers Bluescope Steel, 90 per cent of all new homes use Colorbond in their construction.

The reason for its popularity is simple: it’s a pre-fabricated, pre-painted material that can be used in roofing, cladding, fencing, guttering and even letterboxes. It is relatively inexpensive and low maintenance.

Unlike a raw material such as timber that can be re-painted, Colorbond paint is baked on to the steel. This gives it durability, but it also means the colours are close to permanent.

And because it’s a pre-painted material, the color range of Colorbond has its limitations. There are 20 colours for typical building uses such as roofing and guttering and 14 available for fencing.

In other words, choosing a Colorbond colour in coordination with other permanent materials, particularly brick, should be done very carefully.

The material that is most difficult to change (though not impossible) is the brick colour itself. This should form the base colour – and all other material colours (for roofing, guttering, fencing) should be chosen from there.

According to design and colour consultant Harriet Devlin, one of the most common mistakes people make when using Colorbond and brick is choosing colours that are too similar.

“They can make a building or house look a little off-kilter or slightly ‘wrong’,” Devlin says. “Essentially if there is not enough differentiation between colours it can make a building lack depth and interest – which is made worse if the materials are different, i.e. brick and steel.”

Devlin says that this is particularly common on Government building projects, such as public housing and municipal buildings.

At the other end of the spectrum, another common mistake is to have too much variety in exterior colours.

“Three or four colours is generally the maximum,” she says. “That includes roof, walls, window trim, gutter trim, facia and door colour. Contemporary homes tend to have less design features and therefore lend themselves to fewer colours.”

So if a major mistake is made, what can be done? It is possible to render bricks then paint them. However, this defeats the purpose of choosing low-maintenance materials such as brick and Colorbond in the first instance.

“You can avoid these problems if you choose carefully in the first place,” says Devlin.

Colour and design consultant Harriet Devlin recommends four straightforward principles when matching Colorbond colours with other building materials:

1. Research: “Take photos of houses you like, collect magazine images, ask friends or relatives who have gone through the process, and ask the professionals about common pitfalls.”

2. Theme: “Get an idea of the type of feeling or look you are trying to create. For example, intimate, grand, relaxed, beachy, European, Australian or elegant.

3. Test: “Collect samples of your options and try them on location, lock down the colour of the material which is the hardest to change then choose a variety of Colorbond colours to go with it.”

4. Environment: “Consider the light and shade of the location, how are each of the colours going to appear? Colour is relative so it is important to consider the impact of greenery around a property and the colours of neighbouring buildings.”