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Updating or designing a new home exterior is easier when you choose a color scheme and matching accents, such as wrought iron exterior doors or custom entryway features—but how do you choose the best exterior color scheme for your home?

There are some classic and cutting-edge color schemes that form the basis of a home’s exterior, as well as other factors to consider when bringing together accents and focal points to create the warm, welcoming, stylish entry with the stunning curb appeal that will make your home the star of your neighborhood.

Let’s explore how to use basic principles of home design to choose a color palette, accents, and foundational pieces for your home’s perfect exterior look.

Start with the Right Color Palette

Colors designed to blend together are called a palette, and choosing one can guide all of the rest of your exterior design decisions when choosing paint, window trim, and iron door finishes. The basic factors to consider include:

• The style of your home’s construction, whether modern, traditional, historic, or unique
• Choosing colors which will cover any flaws in your home’s exterior materials
• Selecting a bold color for the front door to create a focal point for the entrance and guide visitors to the main point of entry
• Planning a color scheme which includes at least two tints of the same color and a third contrasting accent color
• Using structural components like wrought iron exterior doors, gates, and matching garage doors in the accent colors or customized finishes
• Keeping in mind that bright colors make rooms and structures appear larger, while dark colors make tall buildings appear shorter, and gradients can fool the eye or highlight architectural features

Recommended Color Schemes for Your Home’s Exterior

Certain color schemes are considered best for specific styles of home, and they often vary by region or area of the country. Blending well into your neighborhood and remaining true to traditional colors may be an important consideration, while other unique homes and edgy colors can bring character to more artistic communities.

Some exterior home color schemes to consider would be:

• Navy on the first story, with paper-white trim for windows, “gingerbread,” and porch railings for a Cape Cod or Victorian-style home.
• Deep coppers or tans combine well with beige trim, with an accent of chocolate brown for shutters and doors—a popular color palette for colonial homes.
• Soft grays and blues combine well with soft white trim for a sophisticated and classic look that is relaxing to come home to—popular for traditional homes and ranch-style houses.
• Adobe and other unusual exteriors in the southwest often come to life with soft pastels such as a light orange or peach with a pink or light yellow trim and accents. Porch ceilings in a cool dark green or blue make outdoor living spaces blend into the night sky.

Using Colors as Design Elements

Of course, you can create your own home exterior color palette with these tips on using color in design:

• Cool colors such as blues, greens, and other dark, subdued tones are used to create stately, classic looks.
• Warm colors with red, pink, or yellow tones may be used in light or dark tones to create an inviting and friendly feel.
• Natural or earth tones make buildings blend into their landscape and are often used to restore historic homes and buildings with period-appropriate colors.

Choose Your Accents Based on Decorating Design Principles

Applying your color scheme to the exterior of your home creates a canvas that allows you to showcase beautiful features and naturally move the eye and path of your visitors toward your iron exterior doors and entryway. Understanding some basic principles of exterior design will help you choose the right elements to create the perfect path to your home.

Symmetry Is Pleasing to the Eye and Mind

Creating visual balance, stability, and symmetry is a hallmark of good design. Sometimes the door is centered with equal numbers of windows and shutters on each side, or another element is used to balance and complete a front facade that includes non-symmetrical features. Using color accents and landscape features such as urns, trees, statuary, or vertical water gardens, you can create an inviting entry that is balanced, proportional, and pleasing to the eye.

How Form Follows Function

This design principle was coined by Frank Lloyd Wright’s mentor, and it makes use of necessary functional construction to shape the structure and design elements of a building. The purpose of a home is to provide the inviting, warm, and welcoming shelter that families want and need.

Using elements like wrought iron exterior doors and exposed timbers, a clean and perfectly functioning exterior look can be achieved. Some of the best exterior designs come from beautifully forming a structure around the rooms and spaces of a home’s interior spaces.

Materials and Textures Add Depth

Incorporating materials with texture or metal finishes, like iron doors and frosted glass sidelights, adds a complexity that can either capture attention or create a soothing surface that hides flaws. Using cedar shingles, brick, wood, stone, steel, aluminum, or steel as part of your exterior design will complete the colors with complementary textures and highlights.

Lights Provide Focus and Direction

Exterior lights not only offer safety and additional security, but they can highlight features and focal points while leading the way to important destinations like your front door or gazebo. Plan on exterior lighting for entryways, garage doors, parking areas, pathways, and outdoor structures to complete the look. Use colored lighting to work with, not against, your color palette. Choosing fixtures in metals that complement your style of home will offer years of service and finishing touches that illuminate the colors and textures you’ve chosen for your exterior design.

Create an Amazing Entry

The style and color of your front door should fit perfectly with your color palette and exterior materials. Your boldest accent color may be the right choice for the front door, to center your home’s front face and bring the color scheme together. Surrounding your entry with lighting, door hardware, and outdoor furniture in one of your chosen colors and featuring patterns or textures that suit your exterior completes this most important exterior design feature.

How to Choose Iron Exterior Doors

Modern, traditional, classic, and historical home exteriors have different structures and spaces around the front entry door. Double doors create an impressive entry for a large home, but they can also be converted to a single door with textured glass sidelights for a more energy-efficient solution without giving up the balance and symmetry of the entry.

Consider some of these features, styles, and materials available for iron doors:

• Pivot doors, which mount floor to ceiling on an axis other than the traditional hinged edge
• Atrium doors which feature iron or steel gridwork combined with glass—one of the hottest trends in front entry doors
• Double entry doors for classic looks, combined with matching garage doors and iron gates
• Single entry modern door designs which maintain a sleek and simple look while providing the best in durability, style, and performance

Choosing a Door Finish

Some of the most popular and extremely durable finish colors for exterior doors that can be custom ordered, if necessary, to work smoothly with your chosen color scheme include:

• Sponge Gold Textured
• Light, Medium, or Dark Copper
• Sponge Silver Texture
• Factory finishes to match your color samples

Choose Glass for Your Entryway and Doors

Door glass and sidelights can be clear or can be textured, etched, or frosted for privacy. Some popular glass features which can complement your home’s interior and exterior include:

• Flemish
• Aquatex
• Gluechip
• Pebble
• Rain
• Reeded
• Sandblast
• Watercubic

Finding Your Matching Exterior Design Elements

There are iron doors to fit every home’s exterior color theme, from traditional to the most modern and unique architectural masterpieces. When it is time to order the all-important front entry doors, garage doors, gates, or other iron, steel, or wrought iron products, reach out to us at Universal Iron Doors.

We have a rich selection of the styles, materials, colors, and features which will allow you to choose or create a custom design that works with your color choices, exterior materials, and climate. Contact us or browse our selection, ready to ship the next day nationwide, and put the finishing touch on the well-designed home exterior you have always dreamed of.