Grey composite doors

Anthracite Grey is RAL 7016, very dark with a slight blue cast. It is the safe answer and it is popular because it matches the grey window frames fitted on most homes since about 2015. Midnight Grey is a touch warmer and deeper, and looks better with chrome than with black furniture.

Granite Grey is a true mid grey and the one to choose when anthracite feels too heavy for a small elevation. French Grey is pale and chalky, and works beautifully on cottages and coastal properties. Pebble Grey is warmer again, closer to stone than to silver, and it is the most forgiving of the five against yellow or buff brick.

Red and orange brick takes anthracite and midnight grey extremely well, because the contrast is high and the door reads as a deliberate feature. Yellow, buff and multi brick is harder: dark grey can look heavy and slightly municipal against it, and Pebble Grey or Painswick will usually sit better.

White render is the easiest of all and takes any of the five. Grey render needs care, because two greys that are close but not the same look like a mistake rather than a scheme. In that case go much darker or much lighter than the wall, never nearly the same.

The colour is through the GRP skin rather than painted on, so it cannot peel or flake. On a strongly south facing elevation a very dark colour will lighten slightly over many years, which is true of every dark exterior finish including paint.

In practice, customers notice it on a door that has been in full sun for a decade, and even then only if there is an unweathered patch to compare against. It is not a reason to avoid dark grey.