Most Mediterranean style homes have very specific details that work better with certain exterior colours and look terrible with other colours. With this style of home, it’s more important to consider the architecture when choosing exterior colour. Here are the 4 best exterior colours for a Mediterranean style house.
Last November when I was in Los Cabos on vacation, I was walking along the beach looking at all the extremely high end vacation properties and noticing all the bad exterior colours. When the 90s (sage greens) or the 2000s (Tuscan brown) colours get combined with roofs like this that’s when it’s just wrong.
Read more: Ask Maria: How do I work with my bossy pink Florida driveway?
Last week I consulted with a client in Spain via Skype on her exterior which is why I’m writing this post.
If you have roof tile that looks like this (above), then these are your choices:
1. Pretty much any shade of yellow.
Yellow and orange always look good together as well as suit a Mediterranean style home.
2. White
3. Blue
I’m loving the blue!
4. Peach or Butterscotch
Love Mediterranean style homes. Looking forward to learn from your experiences.
My favorite is the butter scotch option.
Peach!
I like the blue because it is unusual. The yellow is really striking but might drive you nuts after a while
love all these sunny colors…and the blue
These colors look nice but why won’t an olive green, tan, or taupe work?
If you click on the link I posted at the top of the post you’ll see that those colours look dirty with this style of roof.
We have a tile roof and kept the “original” paint caramel/tan (no pink undertones). Tiles called Burgundy Wine and have orange, burnt orange and brown colors.
I did discover that the previous paint color was a mellow yellow.
OK, I’ll take 3 nights at the first house. Getting my bag packed NOW!!!!
xo,
P.
Hi Maria,
The blue is my favourite also but I prefer the look and style of the peach or butterscotch house!. Wish I could live in that climate too.
Many thanks again for all your learning lessons.
Love the peach but I must say I like them all. My sister lives in Cyprus (in the Mediterranean not Florida) and all the big beautiful houses are painted in various shades of light peach, beige, off white. Looks so lovely for that kind of climate especially with the clay roofs. You would never see any brick there.
Maria, great post. The Ugly House site’s article about trends in Arizona is right on. Our Sun City West houses built in the early 1990s had tile roofs and exteriors that were all some version of pink/white or peach/white. When Del Webb built Sun City Grand in the late 1990s, everything went tan and brown like the article said, fine in Portland, Oregon’s craftsman-style homes but dull as dishwater in the desert. But the biggest issue with exterior paint color today in Sun City West is that residents, tired of the old pink/white or peach/white, either move toward that tan/brown dullness or go really wild …BUT…BUT…BUT … don’t consider the color of their tile roofs which, unfortunately, are not all typical orangey-red tile similar to your first pic above, and there are some truly ugly houses. Our roof was that lovely soft red/orange and we chose an exterior color that some call orange and some call yellow (much softer than the yellow above) but a color that truly made me happy every time I drove up. Don’t live there anymore but still think it’s the loveliest, most cheerful and most inviting home on the block. I’d send a pic but the only one I can find looks just like a plain yellow beige.
LOVE the White! So crisp and clean, really allows the clay roof to pop.
Love the yellow!
I think if you painted your house the yellow color…the neighbors might complain…if you live in a typical neighborhood in San Jose like I do!
My friend lives in a Mediterranean style neighborhood, and their homes are mostly shades of peach or butterscotch. They look great! I don’t think the homeowners association would go for the other colors, but I like them!
How fabulous to have a participant from Brazil!
I’m in almost total agreement here and have only to look around my neighborhood for a few dubious examples. It is full of 80-100 year old homes, almost all of which have their original red or green tile roofs, although most are flat, not barrel-style. Recently, people have been going for red in their trim which totally clashes with the red in the roof. It looks like a Chinese restaurant and is driving me crazy. It’s one painter that does them all and I think It’s the only colour in his arsenal. The homeowner’s think,”If my neighbors did it, it must be OK.”
There were a few muddy brick colours that looked fine prior to the repaint. Then they choose yellow for the body colour. That may look good in a high-light situation, but it is clash city, here in the mid-west, especially with the red trim. I guess while I agree with your pics, the red of the tile varies a lot and does not read “clean” in my mind
I think the red paint not only clashes, but competes as the most dominant element. Great post. Definitely take your colour cues from your roof.
Harder to pick it all from scratch! CTD
Should the exterior colors of a home relate to the interior colors?
In a perfect world yes if both are new. But if you are renovating the inside or painting the outside at a different time when the trends have changed then you treat it like you’re moving forward in the new space. Maria
building a ranch mediterrean home — the roof is a tile roof – reddish in color — I want to go white with gray trim, and darker gray door (even though the door is mostly glass) – the driveway is pavers and pavers around pool — all pick up the red in the roof — Whites are tough to pick — I have to use Porter Paints because of builder — I like the grays that are Porter Paints that are Flagstone and Dover Gray — but the White — which one??? Delicate White or Atrium White – HELP Thanks
another ? Should I go with same gray’s in new house, or pick another gray hummmm thoughts? Thanks Terry
Hi Maria,
Do these colors still “look good” in 2022?
What color specifically of peach would you say #4 is?
Thx,
Ginger