Are you planning to install gutters but don’t know which color to pick? The last thing you want is for your gutters to turn into an eye sore, so it is very important to pick the right color or colors. Keep reading to find out how to choose the right color for your house’s gutters.

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How to Choose Gutter Colors for Your Home

There are many different things to think about when choosing colors for your gutter. First, it is important to know whether your city, county, or homeowner’s association requires any specific gutter colors or gutter types. If you have the freedom to choose for yourself, here are a few guidelines to help you with your decision.

Match Your Siding or Exterior Paint Color

One of the most popular ways of choosing colors for your gutter is to use a color that matches your house’s siding. Matching gutters with the siding or exterior of your house will help you create a seamless look that doesn’t interfere with the overall visual aesthetic of your home. By matching, your gutters will simply serve their functional purpose, and you may not even be able to tell they are there.

Match Your Roof Style

You can also consider matching your gutters to the color of your roof so that your gutters look like a natural part of the roofline instead of a border around your house. While this may be a viable option, this isn’t always recommended because roof colors often stand in stark contrast to the siding of the house.

Match Your Trim Color

If you aren’t interested in matching your gutters with your siding or roof, you can match your gutters with your house’s trim instead. Doing so will help minimize how much your gutters stand out because they run against the trim of the house. While your gutters may be less obvious in the front of your house, they will be more prominent against the sides where there is less or no trim.

Contrast Your Home’s Exterior Color

You can contrast your gutter color with your home’s exterior if none of the previous options suit your taste. The logic behind contrasting your gutters with your house’s exterior is similar to why people choose to install a colorful front door or shutters to contrast with their neutral-colored house. Contrasting colors can help your home make a statement and add to its curb appeal. This is a great option if you want your gutters to stand out without compromising the visual aesthetic of your home.

Depending on the color scheme of your house, there are certainly some gutter colors that work better than others. In fact, choosing the right color combination for your house can often make your house look brand new. Here are some examples of great color combinations for your house’s exterior and corresponding gutter colors that fit these combinations.

Grey and Blue

A grey and blue color combination is a popular blend for modern homes. Usually, the lighter color — either light blue or light grey — is the color of a home’s siding, and the roof is darker. A white gutter can offer a beautiful contrast for homes with these colors, particularly if your home has white trim. Alternatively, dark grey gutters that match your roof can look great.

White and Dark Neutral Colors

Houses with white and dark neutral color schemes can also benefit from white gutters, especially if the house has white trim. No matter what, your goal should be to choose a color that perfectly divides the roof and lower levels with a clean line. You may also want to choose black or dark gutters if you have a lighter roof and a darker exterior.

Dark Blue and White

It is very common for houses these days to have dark blue siding and white or light-colored trim. These homes benefit from a contrast that juxtaposes the color palette, creating a beautiful look. White gutters will almost always be your best option for this color scheme.

Shades of Green

If done well, a monochrome color combination can look great on your house. While grays and blues are the most likely pairings for a monochromatic style, greens are possibly the best because they offer the most dimension. The varying shades of green, such as sage, forest green, and olive, confer beautiful earthy tones on your house while maintaining dimensions and contrast.

Brick and Browns or Blacks

The classic look of a red brick exterior can be paired with a variety of different roof colors and materials that make it difficult to find the right color for the gutters. Because brick is often a mixture of reds, browns, greens, and other shades of color, many homeowners choose to use blacks, browns, grays, and whites on their exterior. When choosing your gutter color, consider using white to blend into the background and smooth out the edges of your textured siding.

Gutter Colors Chart

White AlmondCreamAntique IvoryWicker
Pearly GreyGreyGrey ClayTerratoneTuxedo Grey
Royal BrownMusket BrownScotch RedForest GreenBlack

Other Factors to Consider When Choosing Your Gutter Color

Material Match

Although this article is about gutter color, the material of your gutters cannot be ignored when choosing their color. Because vinyl gutters already come in a variety of colors, you don’t need to worry about paint, but you can always use acrylic latex paint in case you a looking for a different shade. Aluminum and zinc gutters don’t come in many different colors and can be very hard to paint, so you should keep this in mind when choosing your material. Finally, copper gutters are very hard to paint, so you should be sure that you are happy with the color of copper when purchasing these gutters.

Weather and Climate

The weather and climate are important factors to consider when picking your gutter color. If your region has more sun, that means your gutters will receive more UV exposure. Some colors, especially darker ones, respond well to UV exposure because a slight tint to their original tone can go unnoticed. Lighter colors, on the other hand, do not respond well and show visible signs of exposure to the sun.

Check Your Neighbors’ Homes

By looking around your neighborhood, you will get a sense of which styles and color schemes you like best. You may see a home that you love, and you can use this for inspiration. Or, you may have a home with a contrasting gutter color that you hate, helping you to know that you want your gutters to blend in with the rest of your home.

What’s the Effect You’re Going For

This is an important question for homeowners to consider before not only choosing their gutter color but the entire color scheme of their house as well. Do you want a house that blends in with the rest of your neighborhood? Maybe you want a house that stands out and stops people walking by in their tracks. If you want a simple color to blend in with the rest of your house, opt for a mild white or grey — a color that does not take away from the rest of your home’s exterior. If you want to stand out, choose a color like red, blue, or black that will contrast with the rest of your house.

Set a Budget

Unfortunately, not all colors are the same price. White and off-white — the basic factory finishes — are generally the cheaper options if you are painting your gutters on a budget. More colorful paint, especially unique shades and tones, will cost more. But if you are hesitating between cheaper and more expensive colors, remember that opting for the best color match with the rest of your house to increase its curb appeal often pays off in the long run. Also, consider what the cost of replacing or repairing sections of gutters may be.

Check with your HOA

As previously mentioned, you should look into local rules and guidelines about gutter and home exterior colors. It is very common for homeowner’s associations to implement these regulations, and the last thing you want to do is to have to repaint your gutters after finding out that they are in violation of your HOA’s rules.

Will Your Downspout Stick Out?

Downspouts are pipes that aid in gutter drainage, running vertically down your home, and carrying rainwater from your gutters toward the ground. The bottoms of downspouts bend away from the house and usually extend 4 to 6 feet. You can opt to bury your downspouts if you are worried about your downspout sticking out and ruining the curb appeal of your home. Burying your downspouts is not a difficult process, and it is actually a good way of ensuring proper water drainage in your yard.

Gutter Color Options by Material and Cost

MaterialColor OptionsCost
AluminumVariety of Colors$2-$3 per linear foot
CopperCopper/Brown$12-$15 per linear foot
Seamless AluminumVariety of Colors$5-$11 per linear foot
SteelVariety of Colors$4-$6 per linear foot
VinylVariety of Colors$1-$2 per linear foot
ZincWhite, Grey, Black$10-$24 per linear foot

Final Thoughts: To Paint or Not to Paint

Choosing a color for your gutters is never an easy task. While gutters offer the chance to make a statement with their color, you run the risk of ruining the curb appeal of your home. No matter what you decide, make sure to take some time to think about what you want your house to look like and to check that you are abiding by all your HOA’s regulations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should gutters match the roof of your house?

It depends on what you want your gutter color to accomplish. If you want your gutters to blend into the color scheme of your home’s exterior, you may want to match your gutters to your home’s sidings instead of its roof. On the other hand, if you want your gutters to stand out, consider matching them to your roof for a beautiful contrast with the rest of your home’s exterior.


Are colored gutters more expensive than white?

Yes, in general, colored or painted gutters will be more expensive than the white or off-white factory coat that comes on most gutters.


Should my gutters be darker than my roof color?Should my gutters be darker than my roof color?

Your choice of color for your home’s gutters depends on whether or not you want the gutters to blend in with the rest of your home’s exterior. If your gutters are darker than your roof, there is a good chance that they will create a contrast with your house’s exterior.


Should my gutters be the same color as my house?

By keeping your gutters the same color as your house’s exterior, your gutters will blend in and be mostly unnoticeable. If this is your intended style, then you should match your gutters to your house.


Is black or white better for gutters?

In general, white gutters fit with more color schemes than black gutters. White gutters are also more of a classic look that can highlight and subtly contrast other colors without completely catching the eye of people walking by. Black gutters, however, are more likely to stand out unless the rest of your home is already a very dark color.


How we Ranked, Reviewed, and Tested the Best Gutter Guards

Here, we’ve broken down our rating methodology for gutter guards. You should know that we’ve taken the utmost care to provide the most up-to-date information and to ensure that you make the best choice for your budgetary and home maintenance needs.

Why Trust Today's Homeowner? Our Gutter Ranking Methodology

At Today's Homeowner, transparency and trust are our most important values for the reader. We’ve done the homework for you and have researched over 50 gutter guards so you can have the information you need to make the best choice for your home. That’s why we took the time to create an objective rating system and score each gutter guard and gutter guard provider company according to our gutter ranking methodology.

We also dug into the details of each gutter guard to ensure that you could make the best decisions for your home and keep your gutters debris-free for years to come.

To make the most of our research, we developed a formula to objectively determine the best gutter guards based on the following criteria:

  • Material: Material durability was the single most important factor that went into our rating methodology for gutter guards. Whether they were stainless steel micro-mesh or plastic screening, we gave an in-depth rating for this criteria.
  • Debris Resistance: Our testing served as the primary evaluator for this factor. We curated a rating based on customer testimonials and our own in-house testing here.
  • Ease of Installation: Most of the gutter guard options listed have some DIY component involved. For this reason, guards that required the fewest specialty tools got the highest rating here.
  • Cost: How reasonable are prices in comparison to the industry average? We compared the costs of each company to competitors.
  • Warranty terms: We looked into the warranty of lifetime warranty terms if it is offered by the provider.
  • Trust: What do customers rate the company? We looked into what customers are saying about their experience with the company.
  • Buying process: if the gutter guard is a DIY installation, how easy is the buying process? We looked for shipping costs and shipping time, as well as where the product can be bought from.
Editorial Contributors
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Sam Wasson

Staff Writer

Sam Wasson graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Film and Media Arts with an Emphasis in Entertainment Arts and Engineering. Sam brings over four years of content writing and media production experience to the Today’s Homeowner content team. He specializes in the pest control, landscaping, and moving categories. Sam aims to answer homeowners’ difficult questions by providing well-researched, accurate, transparent, and entertaining content to Today’s Homeowner readers.

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Lora Novak

Senior Editor

Lora Novak meticulously proofreads and edits all commercial content for Today’s Homeowner to guarantee that it contains the most up-to-date information. Lora brings over 12 years of writing, editing, and digital marketing expertise. She’s worked on thousands of articles related to heating, air conditioning, ventilation, roofing, plumbing, lawn/garden, pest control, insurance, and other general homeownership topics.

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