Introduction to Color
Welcome to ColorCoach, CertainTeed's home exterior color and design guide. With this comprehensive color guide, our goal is to spark your creativity and elevate your home's exterior aesthetics.
At CertainTeed, we want your home to be the place that makes you smile as you are pulling into the driveway. You might prefer a bright, cheery farmhouse or a more muted modern design. The colors you choose are your tools to realize that vision. Color can evoke our deepest emotions and be an expert communicator; it is a defining feature of your home and the ones surrounding it. Finding a harmonious palette of colors to make your home stand out (or stand back) is the key. The optimal color blend has the power to bring out the best features of your home and give it a refreshing new look. When it comes to aesthetics, there's a real advantage to using products from a single source that are specifically designed to work together, enabling you to achieve a unique combination of textures, styles, and colors to transform your home. Taking advantage of CertainTeed's extensive product catalog gives you the opportunity to comb through various color schemes to find the perfect palette or create one of your own! No matter what the vision may be, CertainTeed can help you achieve it.
Getting Started
First, identify your home’s style and the ones in the surrounding neighborhood. Is it a carriage, a modern, a ranch? How would you like your home to blend with the others? What are its defining features? Take note of the exterior features in your home, are the features cohesive, allowing for more freedom in choosing a color palette, or are they distinct, which calls for more neutral color choices to help it blend? Look too for color inspiration in your surroundings, including landscaping, trees and gardens in your neighborhood and the larger area where you live.
No single element of your home’s exterior has a more profound impact on its overall look than siding. CertainTeed offers over 40 color choices to choose from for your home's exterior. Ranging from cool or warm hues, as well as blends and stains, you can find a siding color palette that best reflects what you want for your exterior personality. Take note of your current or future roofing color when choosing siding as well. Finding a combination that works well together is key to enhancing curb appeal. Once you dive in with your siding choice, the next step is selecting accent and trim color.
No single element of your home’s exterior has a more profound impact on its overall look than siding. CertainTeed offers over 40 color choices for this important part of your home’s design. From cool or warm hues, as well as blends and stains, you can choose a siding color palette that best reflects what you want for your exterior personality. Once you dive in with your siding choice, the next step is selecting accent and trim color.
Understanding the Parts of Your Home: 60-30-10 Rule
The 60-30-10 Rule is a classic design guideline to help find a harmonious balance in your home’s exterior color scheme. The Rule is based on a three-colored palette: 60% of the exterior is the dominant color choice, 30% a secondary color choice, and the last 10% the accent color. The 60-30-10 Rule can more easily be broken down into the siding, the roofing, and the trim, each one taking its own unique role in emphasizing the exterior features of your home.
Stone
CertainTeed STONEfaçade® blends beauty and performance. As the industry’s only fully integrated rainscreen, it provides drainage and support. Stone siding is a great choice to complement traditional siding choices or to create a stand-alone exterior wall.
Main Siding
Vinyl Siding Collection offers classic clapboard, Dutch lap and beaded profiles in various widths and textures. With an industry-leading color spectrum ranging from deep rich shades to semi-transparent blends, you can mix and match your favorite styles.
Accent Siding
Installing two siding textures in distinct colors creates individuality in a home and highlights exterior features. Vertical siding adds dimension and detail to the center of the home. From Board and Batten to Cedar Impressions, mix and match as you wish!
Roof
CertainTeed residential roofing products include shingles, waterproofing underlayment, and ventilation. Going green? Landmark® Solaris® Cool Roof solar-reflective shingles offer deep, rich, vibrant colors—no need to sacrifice style for sustainability.
Trim
Restoration Millwork products are engineered with enhanced features, selections of specialty profiles and traditional trim boards and sheets for custom craftsmanship; Vinyl Carpentry offers an array of vinyl products with a wide range of complementary colors.
Dark VS Light: What Does Shade Say About Your Home?
Setting the Mood
The exterior color is one of the first features noticed on a home. Whether it is bright and airy or darker and subdued, the color is going to set the visual mood for your home. Deciding between a lighter or darker color palette can be based on several factors: the home’s architectural elements, the surrounding environment and climate, and of course, personal preference. A lighter home can appear larger and more inviting, giving a brighter curb appeal, creating more openness within the space, and softening sharp edges. Lighter colors also tend to work better in hotter climates because they reflect sunlight. Darker colors make a home look smaller, but more substantial, giving the home a bolder and more dramatic look to set it apart in the neighborhood. They can highlight and accentuate architectural details, such as trims, moldings, or unique features, adding depth and character to the home's exterior. Darker homes tend to absorb more heat, which makes them more suited to colder climates. Mixing darker and lighter tones is another stylistic choice: a mix of dark and light colors can accentuate interesting architectural elements, while a mix of similar colors can tone down awkward areas.
What is Color Theory
Learn the basics of combining colors to create a beautiful home exterior
