Tudor house colors: choosing paint for stucco, timber and trim

Most Tudor houses look right with a warm off-white or cream on the stucco, a deep brown or near-black on the half-timbering, and one richer color, such as an oxblood red or a dark green, on the front door. Paint every timber the same color, and let the brick and stone decide how warm the palette goes.

Tudor Revival is one of the period-revival styles found among Grosse Pointe’s older homes, and its look rests on pale walls against dark wood. Our guide to painting older Grosse Pointe homes covers the wider picture.

What color should Tudor stucco be?

On a half-timbered house, the stucco is the backdrop for everything else. Warm off-whites and creams suit the style and soften the contrast with dark timbers; a stark, cool white can make the same timbers look severe. Four Sherwin-Williams colors to start with:

• Alabaster SW 7008: a warm, creamy off-white and Sherwin-Williams’ 2016 Color of the Year.
• Greek Villa SW 7551: a warm, gently creamy white, for a wall that reads as white without going stark.
• Creamy SW 7012: a true cream with visible yellow warmth that sits naturally beside red and orange brick.
• Shoji White SW 7042: a soft off-white with a greige (gray-beige) cast, deeper than Alabaster SW 7008. It suits gray stone and cooler brick, where a yellower cream can look out of place.

Texture changes how color reads. Tiny shadows make paint look a little darker on stucco than on a smooth chip, and screens and chips mislead anyway. Test large samples on the stucco itself (or on boards held against it, if it’s never been painted) on more than one side of the house, in morning and late-afternoon light. If you’re still narrowing the list, start in our color studio.

What color should the half-timbering be?

Dark. The half-timbering is the pattern that makes a Tudor look like a Tudor, and it reads most clearly as a deep brown or near-black against pale stucco.

• Urbane Bronze SW 7048: a warm bronze-brown dark neutral and Sherwin-Williams’ 2021 Color of the Year. It keeps the feel of dark-stained wood.
• Iron Ore SW 7069: a soft black, or dark charcoal, with strong contrast that’s less severe than a true black.
• Tricorn Black SW 6258: a true, neutral black, for the crispest contrast.

Whatever you choose, use it everywhere: every timber, any bargeboards along the gable edges, and the window and door trim that belongs to the timber pattern. A gable in one brown and a bay window in another looks like a mistake. Keep the product and sheen identical too, since a different sheen can make the same color look different. If you repaint in stages, do whole sides of the house, because fresh paint beside faded paint shows.

If your timbers are still stained rather than painted, think hard before switching. Once wood is painted, getting back to a stained look means stripping it.

How do you match Tudor colors to brick and stone?

Many Tudor Revival houses combine stucco and timber with brick or stone, often on the first story or around the entry. Take your cue from the masonry, because it isn’t going to change.

Hold samples against the brick in daylight. Red and orange brick usually looks at home beside warm creams like Creamy SW 7012 or Alabaster SW 7008, with Urbane Bronze SW 7048 on the timbers. Brick with brown, gray or purple tones, and most gray stone, often suits the greige cast of Shoji White SW 7042, with Iron Ore SW 7069 or Tricorn Black SW 6258 on the timbers.

Look at the mortar, too. A stucco color close to the mortar ties the two materials together; a stucco much whiter than the mortar can make the mortar look dingy.

The brick and stone on a Tudor are usually meant to stay unpainted, since painted masonry needs repainting for as long as you own it. Our guide on whether to paint brick covers the trade-offs, and choosing exterior colors for a classic home walks through building a whole palette.

What about the front door and window sash?

The front door is where a Tudor can take a deeper color. Two historic Sherwin-Williams colors suit the style:

• Rookwood Red SW 2802: a deep historic oxblood red, at home with dark timbers and red brick.
• Rookwood Dark Green SW 2816: a dark traditional green from Sherwin-Williams’ historic Rookwood colors, quieter than the red and handsome against cream stucco.

Many Tudor Revival entries have heavy wood plank doors, sometimes in an arched opening. If yours is original wood with a sound clear finish, consider keeping it natural, since paint is hard to undo. Our front door paint guide covers the rest.

For window sash, three routes work:

• Match the timbers to fold the windows into the half-timbered pattern. It’s the quietest, most unified choice.
• Match the stucco to brighten the windows. It interrupts the dark pattern, so it tends to suit houses with timbering only in the gables.
• Borrow the door color, such as Rookwood Dark Green SW 2816, for a little character. Keep it to the sash and door.

Aluminum storm windows come in fixed factory finishes; if you have them, your sash and timber colors have to live with them. If original wood windows need work, start with our guide to painting old wood windows.

What does stucco need before it’s painted?

Stucco is masonry, and it needs a coating suited to masonry. Moisture passes through stucco walls as vapor, and a coating that traps it can blister, peel or flake, especially once freeze–thaw cycles get involved. Look for exterior coatings labeled for masonry and stucco, which are generally made to let vapor escape and flex slightly as the wall moves, and follow the label’s prep requirements.

Elastomeric coatings go on thick and stretch, so they can bridge hairline cracks, but many are less breathable than standard masonry paints. They suit some walls and not others.

Hairline cracks are common in stucco and usually cosmetic, the result of shrinkage and seasonal movement; small ones can be filled with a patching product made for stucco. Wider cracks, cracks that keep reopening, bulges and hollow-sounding areas suggest water getting in or stucco coming loose, and they need repair before any paint goes on.

Clean stucco gently, since high-pressure water can erode the surface and drive water into cracks. White, powdery deposits are efflorescence, salts carried out by moisture, so find the water source first. And if your stucco has never been painted and is in good shape, cleaning and repair may be all it needs.

How do you keep half-timbering from rotting?

On most Tudor Revival houses, the timbers are decorative boards applied over the wall, not the structural frame. They’re still exposed wood, and they fail in predictable places.

• Checks. These cracks open along the grain as wood dries and weathers. Checks on top edges and sloped faces hold water; clean them out, prime, and fill or seal them with a flexible exterior product.
• Joints. Rot usually starts where timbers meet each other, a windowsill or the masonry below, because water collects there and soaks into end grain. Probe these spots with an awl; soft wood needs attention.
• The timber-to-stucco seam. An open gap there lets water behind both materials. Keep it sealed with a flexible sealant made for both.

Small soft spots can be dug out to sound wood and rebuilt with exterior filler; two-part epoxy fillers are especially durable. Deep rot, or rot that runs along a timber, means replacing that section. Either way, fix the water source, such as a gutter spilling onto a gable, or the rot returns.

A Tudor Revival house from the early or middle twentieth century was built before 1978, so old paint on its timbers and trim may contain lead, and scraping or sanding it creates hazardous chips and dust. The EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) rule requires certified firms and lead-safe work practices for paid work in pre-1978 homes that disturbs more than 20 square feet of painted surface outside, or more than 6 square feet per room inside. See the EPA’s RRP program page for details.

Why are Tudor gables harder to paint?

The steep roofs and tall front gables that define the style put the most detailed work, the timbers in the peaks, in the hardest place to reach. Getting there safely can take tall ladders, roof brackets or a lift, which affects scheduling. Slate roofs, found on some Tudor Revival houses, add another concern: slate can crack underfoot. Ask any painter how they’ll reach the peaks and protect the roof, plantings and windows below.

Because the peaks are hard to see, problems there go unnoticed. A soft timber end caught early can be a filler repair rather than a carpentry job. Plan repairs for Michigan’s exterior season, roughly late spring to early fall, when stucco and wood are dry. Fixing small problems between paint jobs means fewer surprises when the next exterior painting project starts.

Questions

Try these colors on a houseSketch body, trim, shutter and door colors in real Sherwin-Williams colors.→