Bringing historic Tudor style homes (or in our case, a vintage 70s Tudor) up to date isn’t easy! You’ll of course want to preserve the charm of your home, but give it a fresh new look with the perfect Tudor paint colors.
Learn how to bring that old world style into the modern world with tudor home exterior colors that are fresh, subtle and fabulous!
Take a photo tour of our updated English Tudor home exterior with a soft new exterior paint color palette.
I had it all backwards. I’ll admit it… I’m not always right, and in fact, I’m always learning. When we painted our Colonial, it completely changed my perspective of the entire home. It was so wonderful to pull up to a house we felt proud of.
We waited over two years to paint it, focusing on the inside first. I don’t regret doing so, because we spent countless hours inside those walls, but I always felt myself apologizing for the exterior.
In our St. Louis home, we wanted to try the opposite: painting the exterior before we tackled interior renovations. To see the full before and after of this home, come take the full tour!
In fact, if you’ve been following along for long, you might have noticed that we’ve tackled the exterior paint of this home again. Thanks to extensive wood rot and siding damage, we’ve chose new tudor paint colors – and we’re totally in love.
This post will cover a variety of topics, with images from our home at all stages – before we purchased it, when we first painted, the initial tudor paint color choices, and our current exterior colors.
I hope that this information helps you have confidence in choosing your own tudor paint colors if you’re tackling this project as well!
Tudor Paint
When we purchased our yellow and brown Tudor, I was overwhelmed. Seeing an exterior that needed so much work, I was immediately anxious every time I entered our home.
We decided to do things a little differently this time around, painting the exterior first.
Taking care of the exterior issues and painting it to a pristine and neutral color palette set the tone for inside our home – similar to an invitation. It lets guests know what to expect on the inside and creates a sense of calm from the outside in.
Below, you can see what we were working with.
Don’t Skip These: You don’t want to miss our Spring Porch makeover or this guide to the prettiest Spring Wreaths.
Our Tudor Paint Color Palette
Yes, we’ve just painted this home again. In fact, we even had the brick painted – and we are so glad we finally took the leap! Here’s our current exterior color palette.
Note that we chose Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee for the body and Benjamin Moore Pale Oak for the trim.
To make the Tudor a little more timeless and charming, we chose base and trim colors that were only slightly different. We went a similar route the first time we painted, and here are those colors.
For our first exterior paint project, we selected Sherwin Williams Everyday White and Sherwin Williams Realist Beige. You can see a few of the photos of this color combination at the bottom of this post!
Traditional Tudor Paint
Historically, an English Tudor will feature traditionally light and dark contrast with wood timbers being dark and paneling or stucco a light, neutral color.
With dramatically pitched rooflines, asymmetrical style, diamond windows and half-timbering as the identifying features, Tudor-style homes often feature a combination of brick or stone, plus stucco and wood trim.
Tudor homes built during the Tudor era in England (generally considered between 1485 – 1603) were traditionally black and white. In the 70s, Tudor style experienced a resurgence in the US, and often the color scheme was more of a yellowed cream with brown timbers.
Modern Tudors are often light in color or utilize two lighter colors with a hint of contrast.
If you’re researching exterior paint palettes, don’t skip this charming White Brick House!
Exterior Paint Tips
- An easy method? Find a house you LOVE the colors of, and ask the delightful neighbors for their colors. This is the best way to visualize an exterior paint palette: see it on someone else’s home.
- Get help from a specialist at your local paint store.
- Research! Start pinning on Pinterest and save your favorite looks. You might quickly identify a palette you are drawn to.
- Consider roof color. For example, you might not want to paint your house black and white if you’re dealing with a muddy brown roof tone.
- Consider the lighting. This is where things get tricky… just because you love a neighbor’s west facing home color palette, doesn’t mean you’ll love it for your north facing home. Yes, lighting really can make that much of a difference!
- Get samples. In my case, maybe get 12 samples. View them at different times of the day and on different sides of your home.
Exterior paint colors will vary significantly with the time of day, depending on how the light hits. It’s important to test your samples at various times of the day!
More Tudor House Color Combinations
For a soft and subtle Tudor home paint palette, consider one of these color combinations.
- Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee for the body and Benjamin Moore Pale Oak for the trim. (Our current colors, as shown above!)
- Sherwin Williams Realist Beige and Sherwin Williams Everyday White (our previous colors, as shown below.)
- Benjamin Moore Lafayette Green and Benjamin Moore Going to the Chapel
- Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter and Sherwin Williams Extra White
- Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray and Sherwin Williams Extra White
- Benjamin Moore Victorian Garden and Benjamin Moore Going to the Chapel
Below, note that the following three images showcase the previous color combination on the exterior of our tudor home.
Frequently Asked Questions
Often, it’s the dated appearance of very dark wood that can hold a Tudor home back. While these cottage style homes can ooze character, they need a fresh paint palette to get with the modern times. Consider a soft, subtle palette of beiges or greens for a less stark contrast from the stucco paneling of your Tudor home.
In another way, many people are bringing their Tudor homes into the modern era with a bold black and white look! This is an exterior home color palette that feels fresh and contemporary – it’s varies from the original style because the dark trim is focused in different areas.
If you’re getting ready to paint your home to sell it, you’ll want to appeal to the widest range of buyers that you can. Neutral paint colors like beige, gray, and white are the most popular options, no matter the style of your home.
Details and Sources
Since purchasing and painting our home, we’ve added all new Landscaping, Copper Light Fixtures, new Copper Gutters and more.
Since updating the exterior, we’ve focused on the interior step by step, one project at a time.
I can’t wait to add our new front door very soon… we are planning on a soft, white oak door with windows. Something classic and timeless to match the style of our home, with a Brass Door Knob, of course.
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Love the colors! Â What do you think of painting the brick? Â I have a similar house and am thinking of painting the brick the same color as the field color on the second floor. Â
I love brick – it has to be unmanageable for me to paint over the character and charm brick provides. That’s why I worked to find a color that would compliment it rather than compete with it…but it can look beautiful painted.
You did a beautiful job with your house!  I love the colors you used.  I have a similar house and I’m thinking of painting the bricks the same color as the field color you used on the second floor.  May I ask why you didn’t paint the brick?  Do you think it would look strange or okay?  I’m having a hard time imagining it.  Thank you!
Love the outside colors. My house is brick but would like to consider this trim color. I also have window shutters, what color would you recommend?
I love going 2 shades darker for shutters or a soft, dusty green, or even natural wood. Enjoy!
Well, we are FIVE years into owning our home and I am still in this crisis of WHAT COLORS DO I GO WITH!? We currently have an off-white base and ugly green trim. The stone on the bottom is a mix of neutral brick colors. We replaced all our windows last fall and went with white because the cost to “upgrade” to a colored vinyl was just too much. I love the windows (we stuck with casement for the character) but it has made the color choice even harder. You’d think it would be easy to match with white but I’m not finding it to be! I’m sure our neighbors think I’m nuts because I have various paint colors all over so I can see them in all different lights. I will need to try your base color. It doesn’t look white in the pictures but it may go better with our windows. Why oh why does this have to be so hard??!!
Send me a photo! I’m happy to make suggestions.
Julie,
Your article was very comforting to me. We live in a Tudor style cape cod. Too many different areas to match. The faux stucco is the worst. Long story short, we painted the trim Buff and stucco Dover White. First coat we used a brick color on the trim and it was too bold. I was afraid this would be too pale and bland. Then I saw your house. It’s beautiful and stately. A new twist on Tudor . Thanks for sharing.
Sounds beautiful, thank you Rob!