Best Roof Shingle Colors: How to Choose the Right Shade
Homestead Roofing owner Tracy Bookman walks through which shingle colors homeowners consistently regret — the bold reds, the trendy designer blends, the colors with hidden undertones — and which neutral, mid-tone blends work on nearly any home.
Tracy Bookman opens with a story that every roofing contractor has seen. A homeowner spends weeks agonizing over shingle colors, settles on something they think looks unique and distinctive on the sample board, and then comes home from work on installation day to a roof that looks nothing like what they pictured. In the story Bookman tells, the homeowner chose a red shingle. The contractor tried to steer her away from it. She insisted. And by the end of installation day, she hated it.
Choosing a shingle color is not like choosing paint. If a wall color does not work out, you repaint it over a weekend for a hundred dollars. A shingle color is a 20-to-30-year commitment covering the single largest visible surface on your home. Tracy Bookman's advice comes from years of watching homeowners navigate this decision in Colorado Springs. He has seen which colors generate immediate regret, which ones age poorly as trends shift, and which ones quietly satisfy homeowners for decades.
The Colors You Will Almost Certainly Regret
The first category of regret is the easiest to avoid but the most tempting to choose: bold, unique colors that stand out from every other roof in the neighborhood. Tracy Bookman is direct about this. There is a reason that the more neutral colors are the most popular — they work on pretty much any home.
Red shingles are the most common example. Nearly every manufacturer makes a red shingle, but they are almost never truly red. They almost all carry some sort of orange tint. A roof with that orange-red cast only works on a very particular type of home. Tracy Bookman says he has never seen a house with a red shingle that he thought looked good. True blue shingles are similarly niche. One manufacturer even produces a dark purple shingle. His recommendation on all of these is the same: if you never see a color on another roof in your neighborhood, there is probably a reason.
The second category of regret is less obvious: shingles that look great on a sample board but reveal a hidden undertone at full scale. Tracy Bookman points to CertainTeed's Granite Gray as a specific example. On the sample board, it looks like a handsome, neutral gray. On CertainTeed's website photos, it looks excellent. But when it is installed across an entire roof, a subtle green tint emerges that is invisible in the small sample. The color gets magnified at scale. His team has had to warn homeowners away from Granite Gray after a customer chose it and realized too late that the green undertone ruined the look they wanted.
When Shingle Design Goes Wrong
A third category deserves its own mention: shingles with radically mixed color schemes that read as chaotic rather than blended. Every quality shingle contains multiple granule colors mixed together for depth and dimension. But there is a line between blended and chaotic, and some products cross it.
Tracy Bookman singles out GAF's Copper Canyon as an example — a shingle with such contrasting color elements that it looks like some sort of kindergarten art project. Owens Corning's Designer Series gets similar treatment. Colors like Bourbon, Merlot, and Aged Copper sound sophisticated on the nameplate, but his assessment is blunt: they look like they belong more on the side of a hot air balloon than on the roof of a house. His prediction is that these designer colors will be obsolete within a few years, discontinued by the manufacturers when the trend cycle moves on, leaving homeowners with a roof color that cannot be matched for repairs.
How to Actually Choose a Color You Will Like in 2035
Tracy Bookman offers a practical process that goes well beyond looking at sample boards. First, consider both the current color and the architectural style of your home. A green shingle can look excellent on a dark brown log cabin-style home but would look out of place on a contemporary suburban house. A terracotta-colored shingle complements a tan adobe-style home but clashes with red brick. The shingle color should complement what is already there.
Second, think in terms of contrast. A lighter-colored house — light gray, light blue, cream — pairs well with a darker shingle. Homes with light yellow siding and white trim, or light to medium green siding with lighter trim, look surprisingly good with a shingle blend that incorporates subtle blues and grays, like what some manufacturers call Thunderstorm Gray.
Third, use technology before you commit. Tracy Bookman recommends asking your roofer to use an app called Hover, which builds a 3D model of your home using smartphone photos and lets you swap roof colors from any manufacturer's full catalog. Most roofing contractors have access to Hover or a similar tool and many will send the homeowner a link to experiment with colors on their own time.
Fourth, do not trust digital renders alone, or sample boards. Narrow your choices to two or three colors, then ask your roofer for addresses of completed homes in your area with those exact shingles installed. Drive by and see them at full scale, in natural light, on a real roof.
The Colors That Almost Always Work
Weathered Wood and Driftwood are at the top of Tracy Bookman's list. These are mid-tone neutral blends with subtle color variation that creates depth without calling attention to itself. They work with brick, stone, siding, and stucco in nearly any color. Rich brown tones are the next safe category, particularly on homes with earth-toned exteriors. He names Brownwood as a consistently good brown option. His personal favorite across all manufacturers is CertainTeed's Heather Blend, a warm complex neutral that he says works on an unusually broad range of home styles and exterior colors.
Then Tracy Bookman reveals the most popular shingle color in the country, and it is not what most people guess: black or charcoal. Some shade of dark gray to solid black has been the number one seller in every region of the United States for years. He admits he finds this surprising, but the data backs it up. Dark charcoal and black shingles are the go-to choice for homeowners across every climate zone, every architectural style, and every price point.
The Four-Point Checklist
One: stay away from colors that are unique or bold in your neighborhood. If nobody else has a bright red or blue roof, there is a reason. Two: consider both your home's current color and any color you might want to paint it in the future. A roof color that limits your siding color options for the next 20 years is a roof color you may resent. Three: do not rely on sample boards alone. Use Hover or a similar visualization tool, then drive by real houses with that shingle installed. Four: stick with what works, not what sounds cool or trendy. Weathered Wood, Driftwood, Heather Blend, Brownwood, and charcoal are popular because they work and they will still be working long after the designer colors have been discontinued.
For more on selecting the right roofing material for your home and climate, the guide to choosing asphalt shingles covers material selection in depth. For a comparison of budget versus premium shingle options, the budget vs premium shingles guide explains the cost tradeoffs. Homeowners in the Colorado Springs area can reach Homestead Roofing at homesteadroofingcolorado.com or 719-433-6991. In all other areas click here for Roofing Repairs and Replacement or Call: (702) 620-6514
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