Colors for Victorian Exteriors

Beige

• Victorian exteriors are noted for their often intricate, sometimes elaborate decorative elements, such as corbels, nature-inspired ornamentation and scrollwork. The homeowner who uses a neutral such as beige, leaves wide open her choices for trim or accent colors to highlight these elements. Such hues as olive green, mustard, or cream make period-appropriate trim selections. Modern-day Victorian owners who are not legally or conceptually wedded to historical accuracy may tend toward such accent colors as cranberry, lemon-yellow or eggplant.

Green

• A slightly more adventuresome, yet historically faithful, color for a Victorian exterior is green. In fact, the Governor's mansion in California was originally painted mustard yellow with sage green trim, according to an educational piece published by the state's parks department. The Sherwin-Williams Victorian Preservation Palette for exteriors suggests a deep olive green for walls with dark brown and caramel for trim. Behr displays an image of olive green walls with cream trim in its slideshow of Victorian exterior color options.

Cream

• The serene elegance of creamy off-white shades, such as bisque, oyster or antique white, makes them an ideal selection for your Victorian home's exterior. Off-white blends well with any type of tree cover, foliage, fencing or flowerbed. In addition, it won't clash with neighboring home or auto colors. Moreover, using off-white allows broad choice when it comes to trim. Non-traditional trim colors may include russet, cherry or egg yolk. Period-accurate selections might be dusty rose, terra cotta, caramel or amber.

Lavender

• It might seem surprising that lavender would have been used on homes during a period of such restraint as to mores and manners. But lavender, typically informed with brown or gray, is a period-accurate selection. Sherwin-Williams depicts a scheme of lavender-gray walls with slate and stone-grey trim, while Behr proffers an image of cream-colored upper walls undergirded by gray-brown brick, set off with deep lavender trim. The scheme is carried into the property's fence design for a sense of unity.