Choosing Exterior Colours That Suit Illawarra Homes

Picking a colour off a tiny paint chip is one of the hardest parts of any repaint – and it’s where we spend a lot of time helping people. Here’s how we think about exterior colours on homes around Wollongong.

Look at it in our light, not the shop’s. Colours look completely different under our strong coastal sun than they do on a chip in a hardware store. We always recommend testing a sample on the actual wall and looking at it across the day – morning, midday and late afternoon – before you commit. A colour that looks perfect inside can wash out or go too dark outside.

Work with the house and the street. The best exterior schemes suit the age and style of the home and sit comfortably with the neighbours – not blending into a sea of sameness, but not fighting the street either. Roof colour, brick, render and timber all play a part, so we look at the whole picture rather than one element.

Think about how it ages. Some colours hold up better than others against fading, especially on the sunny and salt-exposed sides of a house. This is also where the quality of the paint matters as much as the colour – we prefer Dulux because we’ve gone back to homes a decade later and the colour still matched. A great colour in a paint that fades fast isn’t a great result.

If you’re stuck between options, that’s normal – we’re happy to walk through it with you and even test a few samples on the wall first.

Colourland Painting is a local, second-generation painting business in Wollongong. For exterior painting and honest colour advice, visit colourlandpainting.com.au.