Find the best garage door paint colors, chosen by a paint color consultant, and get our expert tips to choose the one that’s right for your home’s exterior.
Your garage door might just be the most overlooked surface on your home’s exterior — and one of the biggest. Choose the right color, and it quietly pulls your whole exterior palette together. Choose the wrong one, and it can throw off even the most beautiful color scheme. So how do you get it right?
In this post, we’ll walk you through five foolproof ways to choose a garage door paint color, share our best tips for tricky situations like wood-look doors and oversized garages, and then share our favorite tried-and-true garage door paint colors from years of exterior color consultations.
*This post contains affiliate links for products I use and love. If you click on some links and make a purchase, I will get a small commission at no cost to you. This helps pay for the costs of the blog, so I can continue to offer great content to our readers.
About The Color Concierge
Our Colorado-based paint color consultants make finding the right paint colors for your home easy. Whether you’re painting the exterior or interior of your home, our simple yet effective process lets us get your paint color right the first time. We’ve helped thousands of homeowners transform their homes into a space they love. Learn more about ONLINE COLOR CONSULTATIONS today.
How to Choose a Garage Door Paint Color
Garage doors are often one of the largest surfaces on the front of a house, so the color you choose can make or break your exterior color palette. The good news? You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The key to painting a garage door is to choose a color from your exterior paint palette.
Here are our five favorite ways to handle garage doors within exterior paint color palettes.
5 Ways to Paint Your Garage Door
1. Paint the garage door the same color as your siding.
This is the simplest, most seamless option. When the garage door matches the siding, it blends into the house rather than competing for attention. This is a great choice when you’d rather highlight other features, like your front door.
2. Paint the garage door an accent color.
If you want your garage door to make a statement, paint it one of the accent colors in your palette. This works beautifully when the door has attractive architectural details worth showing off.
3. Paint the garage door your white trim color.
This is a classic, crisp look, but here’s the catch: make sure you actually paint the garage door. Sometimes homeowners keep the door in its base builder white, which often doesn’t match the trim color, and the result doesn’t look put together. Painting it in your true trim white makes all the difference.
4. Paint the garage door your black trim color.
If your home features black trim, carrying that color onto the garage door creates a cohesive, high-contrast look. The downside is that a dark garage door can be hot to the touch in warm climates or hot summers. This may not be a big deal if you never touch your garage door, or don’t spend alot of time in your garage.
5. Paint the garage door your shutter color.
Repeating your shutter color – or front door color – on the garage door ties the whole exterior together and reinforces your palette.
Bonus Color Consultant Tips for Choosing Garage Paint Colors
Stick with your paint palette.
You could also pull a color from one of your hard finishes, like your brick or driveway, but we always stick with the paint colors in the palette – they’re easier to get right.
Test wood and wood-look doors carefully.
If you’re choosing a wood or wood-look garage door, test carefully to make sure the finish flows nicely with the colors in your palette. We love natural-looking finishes, but we tend to stay away from cedar – it reads very orange, which is limiting and can fight with many color schemes.
Consider the size of your garage doors.
If your garage door takes up half the front elevation of your house, painting it a contrasting color from the rest of the home can visually cut the house in half. For oversized doors, a cleaner choice – like matching the siding – usually looks best.
13 Best Garage Door Paint Colors
As professional paint color consultants, we’ve helped hundreds of homeowners choose garage door paint colors. Here are some of our favorite hues, including real client photos.
Dark & Colorful Garage Door Paint Colors
Benjamin Moore Hale Navy Garage Doors
Benjamin Moore Hale Navy (Article) is one of the most popular navy blue paint colors on the market – and it’s popular among our clients, too! With an LRV of 8, Hale Navy is a deep blue, slightly muted paint color with subtle green undertones. It’s a gorgeous for garage doors!
On our client’s Mid-Century Modern home (Article), for example, the back driveway view quickly became my favorite, with a blue-gray fence, BM Stormy Sky garage siding and BM Hale Navy garage doors.
Sherwin-Williams Sea Serpent Garage Doors
Sherwin-Williams Sea Serpent (Article) is one of the most beautiful paint colors – warm and earthy, but still muted. If you want a dark garage door that’s more colorful than black, this deep blue-green hue could work well.
On one client’s blue and yellow Victorian home (Article), for example, the detached garage used the same palette as the main house, with Sea Serpent on the garage doors, front door, column accents, part of the shingles and the foundation stone.
We also used Sea Serpent on the garage doors of our client’s SW Dorian Gray exterior (Article) below, which provided a really lovely contrast with the body of the house.
Sherwin-Williams Sommelier Garage Doors
Sherwin-Williams Sommelier is a beautiful deep red paint color that leans toward burgundy/brown. We love to use this paint color for exterior front doors but it works just as well as a garage door – especially if it ties in with another part of your exterior palette.
Our client’s SW Anonymous home (Article) below, for example, featured a detached garage, and we decided this was the perfect place to go a little bold and add a pop of color to the palette. SW Sommelier was a match to the home’s earthy red window frame color and really tied the color scheme together.
Black Garage Door Paint Colors
Benjamin Moore Black Beauty Garage Doors
Benjamin Moore Black Beauty is a deep, neutral black paint color we love to use on exteriors – including garage doors. With an LRV of 5.32, it’s dark enough that it can provide contrast even for dark exterior siding colors.
On our client’s Benjamin Moore Iron Mountain (Article) house below, a BM Black Beauty garage door helps tie this moody exterior color palette (Article) together. We also used Black Beauty for the home’s front door and roofline trim.
Sherwin-Williams Urbane Bronze Garage Doors
Sherwin-Williams Urbane Bronze (Article) was the Sherwin-Williams Color of the Year in 2021 and is a truly unique color. It’s a deep brown with warm green undertones and pairs well with other warm colors and finishes. If you like the look of a black and white exterior color palette but want something softer, Urbane Bronze is a great option.
For some additional depth in our client’s low-contrast SW Accessible Beige exterior palette (Article), for example, we used Urbane Bronze for the front door, fascia, gutters, garage door and corbels.
Urbane Bronze also pairs beautifully with warm stone and creamy whites, as pictured on our client’s Missouri home below.
Sherwin-Williams Tricorn Black Garage Doors
Black garage doors are so classic and Sherwin-Williams Tricorn Black is one of the blackest paint colors on the market, with an LRV of 3. We love to use Tricorn Black for garage doors for dark exterior color palettes.
On our client’s home below, Urbane Bronze siding, roofline, and trim looked gorgeous with Tricorn Black as a garage door and front door. This is a great way to create a low-contrast exterior color palette even when using dark colors.
Sherwin-Williams Iron Ore Garage Doors
Sherwin-Williams Iron Ore (Article) is a soft, warm black with green undertones and an LRV of 6. It’s one of the most popular black paint colors on the market. And it’s also one of our favorites for garage doors.
On our client’s home below, we paired SW Greek Villa (Article) exterior paint with red brick and Iron Ore garage doors and front door.
Sherwin-Williams Black Magic Garage Doors
Black Magic is a very dark black, with an LRV of 3 – similar to SW Tricorn Black, but even warmer. We used SW Black Magic for the garage door on the back garage of our client’s SW Rosemary historic home (Article), and it really ties the whole property together, sitting across the yard from the home’s beautiful back porch.
Black Magic garage doors also look beautiful with a warm, creamy white exterior body color, such as on our client’s SW Alabaster (Article) home below.
Gray Garage Door Paint Colors
Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter Garage Doors
Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (Article) is a warm greige paint color with strong green undertones. With an LRV of 55, it’s really a mid-toned gray paint, but it looks lighter than you might expect when you take it outside. On the BM Swiss Coffee home (Article) below, Revere Pewter made the perfect low-contrast accent color for our client’s garage doors.
Sherwin-Williams Intellectual Gray Garage Doors
Sherwin-Williams Intellectual Gray (Article) is just beautiful, and we’ve used this color on many exterior color palettes. It has warm green undertones and is dark enough and warm enough that it won’t look washed out in the bright sun.
On our client’s SW Iron Ore exterior (Article), we used Intellectual Gray garage doors because its green undertones tied together perfectly with the Iron Ore siding and red brick. The Intellectual Gray door paired with Iron Ore siding provided a really lovely depth to this space.
On another Colorado home, when we changed the siding color from green to SW Intellectual Gray. Because the garage takes up so much space at the front of their home, we painted the garage doors the same color as the siding.
White Garage Door Paint Colors
Sherwin-Williams Pure White Garage Doors
Sherwin-Williams Pure White (Article), with an LRV of 84, is the brightest of our favorite garage door paint colors, and the lightest we would ever pick for an exterior. Don’t confuse this with Benjamin Moore Pure White, which is a cool greige color and completely different!
Use Sherwin-Williams Pure White when you have bright white elements like a white vinyl fence, you live up North with less intense sunlight, or you live on a lot with lots of shade. Avoid this exterior color on a sunny lot in the South or in the mountains – you might need sunglasses just to look at it!
Our client’s gorgeous modern farmhouse below is a perfect example. Since the windows are white vinyl and the architectural details complex, we kept the window trim white and used the black accent color sparingly. The gutters and downspouts were painted black for a distinct farmhouse look, and we kept the garage doors white to keep the black accents light.
Sherwin-Williams Grecian Ivory Garage Doors
Sherwin-Williams Grecian Ivory is the perfect “white” exterior trim color for our client’s SW Seaworthy palette (Article). We picked this color for several reasons: it provides a softer contrast with the dark teal Seaworthy paint color, and we like to pick warmer and darker colors to pair with warm stone or red brick. At higher altitude in the Denver area, we also use darker whites to keep the brighter sunshine from washing them out. Learn more in our post about picking exterior white trim paint colors (Article).
We also used Grecian Ivory for the garage door, believe it or not. I took this photo, so I know the effect is real – Grecian Ivory looks like a soft, warm creamy white color in the sunshine. It works really well as a white trim color outdoors, especially when paired with a dark body color like Seaworthy. It adds plenty of contrast without looking too stark in the sunshine.
Benjamin Moore Simply White Garage Doors
On our client’s historic Hepplewhite Ivory home (Article), we incorporated a lot of white paint on all of the trim and some architectural elements to keep the home light and bright.
We chose Benjamin Moore Simply White (OC-117) (Article) because it is a warmer white that has just enough color to not look too stark in bright sunlight. Simply White might look too bright on some home exteriors, but it works with the soft and sunny Hepplewhite Ivory siding. Since it is a very bright white for an exterior, you may need to prime the surfaces first.
I absolutely love the way this soft, buttery yellow pairs with the warm white garage doors.
Best Garage Door Paint Colors Based on Color Palette
Still not sure the best paint color for your garage? Here are some of our favorite applications for our top-pick colors. Click on the paint color names to purchase peel-and-stick samplizfn
Best Garage Door Paint Colors for White Houses
For a white house, you can paint the garage door either white or black – we like black if the house is fairly simple (otherwise it can be too much), and if you go white, be sure to add black accents like door pulls and house numbers so it doesn’t look too stark.
Best Garage Door Paint Colors for Dark Exterior Color Palettes
For dark and moody exteriors, choose a garage door color that’s either dark enough to keep the contrast low or soft enough to add gentle depth.
Best Garage Door Paint Colors for Red Brick & Earthy Exteriors
For homes with red brick, warm stone or earthy finishes, pick a garage door color with warm undertones that complements those elements.
Sample All the Best Garage Door Paint Colors
- Benjamin Moore Hale Navy
- Sherwin-Williams Sea Serpent
- Sherwin-Williams Sommelier
- Benjamin Moore Black Beauty
- Sherwin-Williams Urbane Bronze
- Sherwin-Williams Tricorn Black
- Sherwin-Williams Iron Ore
- Sherwin-Williams Black Magic
- Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter
- Sherwin-Williams Intellectual Gray
- Sherwin-Williams Pure White
- Sherwin-Williams Grecian Ivory
- Benjamin Moore Simply White
We always recommend that you test paint colors (Article) in your home because lighting can completely change a color, both on interiors and exteriors.
In the old days, this meant we painted a large poster board with sample pots and a huge mess.
Now we have a better way to test paint, with Samplize Peel-and-Stick samples!
- Samples pre-painted with 2 coats of real paint from the manufacturer.
- Large 9” x 14” samples to see the color better in the lighting.
- Delivered overnight
- Colors are accurate
- Less expensive than painting a large poster board with sample pots
- No mess, and no toxic paint to dispose of
I use these in my color consulting practice for exact results. Discover Samplize peel-and-stick paint samples and sample all your favorite exterior house colors via the link below.
Key Learning Points
Choosing a garage door paint color doesn’t have to be complicated. The key is to repeat one of the colors already in your exterior paint palette – whether that’s the siding, trim, shutter or accent color.
- Garage doors are often one of the largest surfaces on the front of a house, so pay attention to their size. If the garage takes up a large portion of the front elevation, a quieter choice like matching the siding usually looks best.
- If you paint your garage door white, make sure you actually paint it the same white as your exterior trim. A builder-basic white garage door that doesn’t match the trim won’t look put together.
- Match your garage door color to your palette style: dark, low-contrast accents like BM Black Beauty or SW Tricorn Black suit moody exteriors, warm hues like SW Urbane Bronze and SW Sommelier complement red brick and earthy finishes, and a bold pop of color on a detached garage is a simple way to make the whole property feel cohesive and intentional.
Remember: NEVER, EVER use paint matches from a different brand than the one specified. Results are poor and there are no standards for the sheens. Even though your painter may truly believe it can be done, don’t do it. See results from paint matching here.
No matter what, always test your paint colors. It’s a standard best practice. Whenever I test my paint colors, they are perfect, and when I don’t test they turn out wrong. Learn how to test your paint colors here.
Online Color Consulting
Still need help picking the best paint colors? Discover our Online Color Consulting Packages.
Related Posts:
- Choosing Exterior Paint Colors
- Best Blue Exterior Paint Colors
- Best Dark Exterior Trim Colors
- Best White Exterior Trim Colors
About the Author
Hi, I’m Michelle Marceny, founder, owner, and Principal Color Designer at The Color Concierge. I believe a fresh coat of paint can completely transform a space. The Color Concierge was born out of my drive to help clients fall back in love with their homes. My clients trust me to help them find the perfect paint color for their home – whether it’s a whole-house paint color scheme or ideas for a single room.
Since The Color Concierge was founded in 2017, we have completed over 3000 color consultations, both online and in-person. I am a Certified Color Expert with 7 years of experience creating interior and exterior color palettes throughout North America.
We love your comments! Please note that the blog is meant as general advice, and it is not possible to give out specific answers to your paint questions. If you want more specific advice, our Online Color Consultations will help you pick your paint colours. Thank you for your understanding.
