Exterior color selection is not simply a matter of finding three colors that look attractive on a sample board. Materials have texture, scale, undertones and different relationships with natural light.

A roof may appear charcoal from the street but contain warm brown granules at close range. Red brick may also include violet, rust and black. Manufactured stone may combine cream, gray and tan within one wall.

Gentek Fairhaven Sound shakes introduce cedar-inspired texture and their own shadows. PEPA emphasizes the broad color and design flexibility of polymeric siding, but that flexibility becomes valuable only after the permanent materials establish boundaries.

The goal is coordination, not exact matching. Materials with different textures rarely appear identical even when they carry similar color names.

Build the Exterior Palette in the Right Order

1. Roof: Establish its dominant color, secondary tones and overall warmth or coolness.
2. Brick and stone: Identify dominant colors, quiet secondary tones, mortar and joint color.
3. Windows and permanent metal finishes: Account for frames, gutters, flashing and doors that will remain.
4. Main siding: Choose the largest wall color after the fixed materials are understood.
5. Shake siding: Select a texture and color that supports a specific architectural feature.
6. Trim and smaller accents: Use these to connect the full composition.

First Determine Whether the Palette Is Warm or Cool

Warm and cool are relative descriptions. A gray can lean blue and cool, brown and warm or nearly neutral.

A mixed palette requires more care, but it may also offer more flexibility. Use physical samples to determine whether a proposed siding color makes one unwanted undertone suddenly appear stronger.

How to Read the Roof Color

The roof covers a large visible area, especially on ranch homes, steep gables and houses viewed from below. It should never be treated as a generic dark background.

Evaluate the roof at two distances:

• From the street, identify the overall color the roof presents.
• From a safe ground-level position, identify visible granule or material variation.
• Compare sunny and shaded roof slopes.
• Include flashing, gutters and other roof-edge metals.
• Consider whether the roof will remain through the expected life of the siding project.

Do not climb onto the roof to inspect color. Product records, contractor information and safe ground-level observation are sufficient starting points.

Common Roof-and-Shake Relationships

Read Brick as a Collection of Colors

Brick is rarely one solid color. Step close enough to identify individual tones, then back away until the wall blends into its overall appearance.

Record:

• Dominant brick color
• Darkest recurring color
• Lightest recurring color
• Mortar color
• Whether the overall wall reads as warm, cool or neutral
• How much of the façade the brick occupies

The best siding connection often comes from a quieter secondary brick tone or the mortar—not the strongest red, orange or brown in the wall.

Stone Requires Even More Restraint

Natural and manufactured stone can contain several colors, irregular shapes, deep joints and strong texture. Pairing it with cedar-look shakes creates two highly dimensional materials.

To keep the exterior balanced:

• Pull one quiet stone tone into the shake color.
• Avoid using the most saturated stone color as a large siding field.
• Keep the number of additional siding profiles low.
• Consider Traditional Shake when the stone is deeply textured.
• Use clean trim to separate the two materials.
• Verify cap, flashing and transition details before installation.

When Brick and Stone Appear on the Same House

Brick, stone and shakes can coexist, but each additional material makes visual discipline more important.

If brick and stone are both permanent:

1. Identify the colors they share.
2. Use one shared neutral as the siding direction.
3. Keep the shake profile quieter if both masonry materials are heavily textured.
4. Repeat one trim color across all three materials.
5. Avoid introducing another unrelated accent color.

If the masonry materials do not share any visual relationship, the problem may not be solvable through siding color alone.

Choose the Shake Profile After Studying the Texture

Use Contrast Deliberately

Contrast can occur through color, value, texture or profile. A design does not need strong contrast in all four areas.

• Dark shakes against light stone create strong value and texture contrast.
• Related mid-tone shakes against brick rely more on texture than color.
• Scallops create shape contrast even when the color is closely matched.
• Hand-Split Shake creates deep texture contrast without requiring a dramatic color change.

When the masonry is already prominent, allow the shake color to remain restrained.

Trim Connects Materials That Cannot Match Exactly

A consistent trim color can create a shared framework around siding, brick and stone. This is often more effective than trying to make fundamentally different materials match perfectly.

Gentek’s Color Clear Through collection is intended to coordinate selected siding, soffit, fascia, trim and accessory colors.

Use trim to define:

• Windows crossing more than one material
• Shake-to-horizontal-siding transitions
• Masonry terminations
• Gable edges and rooflines
• Inside and outside corners

Create a Physical Sample Board

Digital visualizers are useful for testing broad ideas, but they cannot reproduce the exact light, texture and scale of an individual property.

Assemble:

• Main siding sample
• Fairhaven Sound profile and color sample
• Trim sample
• Soffit and fascia sample when those components will change
• Roof sample or manufacturer record when available
• Clear photographs of brick and stone variation

Take the siding samples to the masonry. Do not rely on brick or stone photographs viewed inside a showroom.

Review Samples Under Several Conditions

1. Place samples against the actual wall.
2. Review them in morning light.
3. Review them again in direct afternoon light.
4. Move them to a shaded elevation.
5. Step back to driveway distance.
6. View the complete home from the street.
7. Include landscaping and neighboring colors in the final review.

Gentek advises making final color selections with actual product samples because printed and digital colors may differ from the manufactured product.

Common Roof, Stone and Brick Color Mistakes

• Calling every dark roof neutral: Many charcoal roofs contain noticeable blue, green or brown undertones.
• Matching the strongest brick color: A quieter secondary tone often produces better balance.
• Ignoring mortar and stone joints: Joint color may be the most useful neutral.
• Using too many active textures: Brick, stone and deep shakes can compete.
• Trying to match unlike materials perfectly: Texture and lighting make exact matches unrealistic.
• Selecting from a screen: Digital color is not a final specification.
• Forgetting future roof plans: New siding should not lock the homeowner into an unwanted replacement-roof color.

A Final Color-Coordination Checklist

1. Identify the roof’s overall color and undertone.
2. Record dominant and secondary brick colors.
3. Record stone and joint colors.
4. Decide whether the complete palette is warm, cool or mixed.
5. Select the dominant siding color.
6. Select a shake profile appropriate to the existing texture.
7. Choose a shake color from an existing quiet tone.
8. Add consistent trim, soffit and fascia colors.
9. Review physical samples outdoors on several elevations.
10. Confirm current Gentek availability before finalizing the order.