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Colour is the decision most people leave until the door has been measured, then make in a hurry from a printed chart. It deserves more than that. On many Perth homes the garage door is the largest single coloured surface facing the street, and it will be there for a long time. This guide covers the COLORBOND® garage door colours you are likely to be offered, what Classic and Matt mean, how to tie the door in with the roof and trim, and what our sun and sea air do to the choice.
What is COLORBOND steel, and why do so many Perth garage doors use it?
COLORBOND is BlueScope's pre-painted steel. The sheet is coated against corrosion and the colour is baked on at the mill, before the door maker ever rolls it into a curtain or presses it into a panel. That is different from a plain steel door painted after it is built, and it is why the finish has no brush marks, no runs and no thick edge that lifts. The same steel goes on roofs, gutters, fascias, fences and sheds all over Australia, so a door in the same range as the roof and gutters ties in without guesswork. Steel-Line, B&D and Centurion Garage Doors, the three brands we supply, install and service, all build their standard roller and sectional doors from it.
What colours are commonly available for a garage door?
The names below are long-standing colours from the standard COLORBOND range, grouped the way we talk about them on a driveway. Not every door comes in every one of them. Each maker decides which colours it runs in each profile, some profiles are made in a shorter list, and BlueScope refreshes the palette from time to time, so treat this as a starting point rather than a catalogue. Availability varies by door maker and profile; check the current chart or ask us to confirm before you order.
- Light neutrals: Surfmist, Classic Cream, Paperbark and Dune. Off-white through to warm sand. They suit rendered walls and cream or tan brick, and they stay the coolest in the sun.
- Mid greys and soft tones: Shale Grey, Windspray, Evening Haze and Wallaby. The middle ground on most new estates, where the door is meant to sit back rather than stand out.
- Dark charcoals and browns: Basalt, Woodland Grey, Ironstone, Monument and Night Sky. Sharp against white render and pale brick, and the group to weigh up carefully on a west-facing door.
- Colours with more colour in them: Deep Ocean, Cottage Green, Pale Eucalypt, Manor Red and Jasper. Less common on new doors, more common when matching an existing roof or a heritage-style front.
Which colours come up most often as popular choices?
There is no official league table, so treat any claim about the most popular COLORBOND colour as opinion, ours included. From what goes onto Perth houses, the charcoal end of the chart has been the common pick on new builds and renovations for some years now. Monument is the one people ask for by name, with Woodland Grey and Basalt close behind. Shale Grey and Dune turn up where the owner wants the door to blend into a grey or sand-coloured house, and Surfmist and Classic Cream still suit the older brick-and-tile fronts in suburbs like Morley and Midland, where a dark door can look bolted on.
Resale is worth a thought if you might sell within a few years. A mid or dark neutral that picks up the roof or the window frames is the choice least likely to put a buyer off. A strong colour like Manor Red is a personal decision; have it if you love it, knowing it narrows the audience.
What is the difference between a Classic finish and a Matt finish?
Classic is the standard COLORBOND finish, with a low sheen that catches a little light and shows the ribs or pressed pattern of the door clearly. Matt is a flatter finish that scatters light instead of reflecting it, so the colour looks softer and more even, and small waves in a large flat panel are less obvious. In the COLORBOND Matt vs Classic comparison, the colour itself is the same base tone; it is the surface that changes, and on a wide sectional door the difference is easy to see from the street.
Two practical points. Matt is offered in a shorter list of colours, weighted towards the greys and neutrals, and not every maker runs it on every profile or on roller door curtains at all. And it is normally priced as an upgrade over Classic, so ask for both figures on the quote. Neither finish needs different upkeep: an occasional wash with water and a soft brush is what both want.
Should your garage door colour match the house, the roof or the trim?
Should the garage door colour match the house? Usually it should belong to the house rather than copy one part of it, and there are three reliable ways to do that.
- Match the roof and gutters. This is the classic COLORBOND approach, and it is the safest, because those elements are already in the same range and the door reads as part of the same kit.
- Match the window frames, fascia or front door. The garage door then reads as joinery, which suits modern fronts where the walls are render and the frames are charcoal or black.
- Match the wall. A Surfmist door on a Surfmist-rendered wall, or Dune on sand-coloured render, makes a big double door almost disappear, which is often what you want when the garage dominates the frontage.
The one thing to avoid is a near miss. A door that is almost the colour of the brick looks like a mistake; a door that clearly matches something else, or clearly contrasts, looks intended. When we measure for a new garage door anywhere in Perth it pays to see the colour against your own brickwork and roofline, because the same chip can look right on one house and wrong next door.
Do roller, sectional and tilt doors all offer the same colour range?
Not always, and this is where the chart on the maker's website matters more than any general guide. COLORBOND roller door colours are usually drawn from the standard range, but because the curtain is rolled from coil in long runs, some makers stock fewer colours on roller doors than on their sectional ranges, and Matt is less common on a roller curtain. The roller doors we supply and fit cover the mainstream colours well; if you want one of the less common ones, we check it against the maker's list before we quote.
Sectional doors have the widest choice: the full standard range on most profiles, Matt on a good share of them, and timber-look prints on top. Some profiles are limited, so once you have picked a panel style on our sectional garage door range, ask which colours that particular profile is made in. Tilt doors are a single panel, and the steel-faced versions use the same range as sectional panels; clad tilt doors are whatever you clad them in.
How does Perth's sun affect colour choice over time?
Perth has more sun than most places these doors are sold, and it changes the sums on colour in three ways. First, heat. A dark door soaks up the afternoon sun, and a west- or north-facing Monument or Night Sky door can be uncomfortable to touch by mid-afternoon in January. That heat goes into the garage behind it, which matters if the garage is a workshop, a gym or sits under a bedroom, and on the hottest days a dark roller curtain expands enough to drag in its guides. Light neutrals stay noticeably cooler, and if you want a dark door on a hot wall, an insulated sectional door takes most of the sting out of it.
Second, fading. Every exterior finish softens over the years, and it shows most on dark and strong colours, where the surface can go slightly chalky, and least on the light neutrals. A north- or west-facing door weathers faster than a south-facing one on the same house. Third, salt. Close to the coast, from Scarborough and Hillarys down to Fremantle, the sea breeze leaves a salt film on the door. It harms the edges, the bottom rail and any scratch through the coating more than the colour itself, and those are where rust starts. A monthly hose-down and prompt touch-up on chips do more for a coastal door than the colour choice ever will.
Dark doors get hot enough to matter
On a west-facing wall in summer, a charcoal steel door can be too hot for a child's hand or a dog's nose by the afternoon. If small children use the driveway, keep that in mind when you are choosing between Monument and Shale Grey, and keep the wall button, not the door face, as the thing they touch.
Where can you see real colour samples before you order?
Never choose from a phone screen or a printed brochure; both make Shale Grey and Windspray look the same when they are not. What you want is a real steel sample of the actual finish, Classic or Matt, held against the wall of your own house in morning light and again in the afternoon, because a grey that looks warm at nine can look blue at four.
- Ask the door maker or the installer for steel swatches in your shortlist, in the finish you are considering, and keep them for a day or two.
- Look at whole doors, not chips. Drive through a newer estate and note which houses look right to you and what colour the door, roof and frames are.
- Use the makers' online visualisers to narrow the list, then confirm the finalists on steel. They are good for ruling colours out and poor for ruling them in.
- Check the sample against the roof and gutters as well as the wall, and check it with the front door open and closed if the two are near each other.
- Before you settle on the colour, confirm the size and profile, because that decides which colours are on the table. Our guide to standard garage door sizes in Australia is the other half of the pre-order homework.
Once you have a colour and finish in mind, tell us which door you are looking at and we will confirm it is made in that combination before anything is ordered. The measure and quote are free, and we price the whole job before we start.