A Tuscan Color Palette
For Our House
Can you suggest a Tuscan color palette for our house?
(Reader question).
Hello Renate,
We live in a home that was renovated with a beautiful Tuscan theme.
The exterior of the house does not seem to fit with the interior, though.
The roof is brick red and the house itself is painted a cream color (almost pale yellow) with shutters that are painted a pale grey aqua-blue (don't know how to describe the color, really!)
Question: What color should we paint the house and shutters to complement the red roof, and to go along with the interior Tuscan theme?
Thank you!
Brigette
(USA)
Hi Brigette,
This is an interesting question, because if you look at pictures of Tuscan homes, you will find that the combination of brick-red tiles, cream colored walls and light blue shutters is quite common in an exterior Tuscan color palette.
If you feel that your house colors don't really look like Tuscan
paint colors, this could be because the red, cream and blue that were chosen aren't the
correct hues, tints, or shades.
It may be that the roof is too red and new-looking. The 'roofscapes'
of Tuscan villages usually look washed out and grayed, rather than shiny and bright.
However, you can integrate a bright-red roof into a Tuscan color palette by painting the walls in really mellow, somewhat grayed Tuscan colors, like
- a soft, peachy terracotta, or
- a chalky apricot pink, or
- a pale yellow (similar to the color of straw), or
- an earthy yellow ochre (if you prefer stronger colors).
As for the shutters, pale blue is perfectly fine for a Tuscan color palette, as long as it looks greyed (and not 'tropical').
So if you feel that your shutters aren't really in "Tuscany colors", you could take your pick from the following shutter colors. Any of them will fit into a typical Tuscan color palette:
- dark green (similar to dark laurel leaves, or bottle green, or deep fir green - they all work in Tuscan color schemes), or
- really pale bluish or greenish gray, or
- deep 'oxblood' red.
Alternatively, if they're wooden shutters, you could decide to strip them of their current paint & stain them a rich, dark, natural brown, covered with clear varnish). Many Tuscan houses have doors and shutters that aren't painted at all.
I hope this helps - Good Luck!
Renate
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