The explosion of colour in the entrance door market has been one of the major catalysts of it’s transformation in recent years. The composite door was the main instigator of the colouration of the market.

We’re not just talking about White and a few wood grain effects. Bold colours like deep Red, dark Blue, Black and dark Green set the ball rolling, with many more colours following suit soon after. Now, composite door producers, like Solidor for example, offer 20 colours within it’s range, and I’m sure that will only continue to expand in the coming years.

In fact colour has become so popular, across all the doors that we do, that I cannot remember the last time I sold a plain old White front door or back door. It has quickly fallen to the bottom of the list with home owners when it comes to colour choice. And for good reason.

For too long, White doors, largely represented in the now very dated PVCu panel door market, graced nearly every home on every street for decades. It was either that, or a couple of very unrealistic wood grain effects. The colour revolution has now given home owners a much more attractive range of choice, and almost all of them do not want to go back to White any time soon.

In this colour revolution, you’ll only need one guess as to what is now the most popular colour for a new door. That would be Black. It’s the most popular by a country mile, at least round my neck of the woods. Whilst it’s not White, it’s not very diverse.

Black becoming the new White

On the right door design, Black can look very classy. Take a look at two of ours:

These are two Black doors, a John Fredericks engineered door on the left and a Solidor composite door on the right. Both I think look rather splendid. But then again I would say that!

If I was to tally up all the colours of all the doors I have sold in recent year Black would be by far the most popular colour. And that I think poses a long term problem. They will age very quickly.

Take a look at any street over the next few days after reading this. I’ll bet that at least a couple of properties now has a Black door now. Maybe even more. I have seen some streets that have had more Black doors than White doors. At this rate, Black doors are going to become the new White doors. They won’t age well. They’ll become too populous. The novelty and long lasting appreciation for the colour will fall away if the majority of home owners choose Black. The “me too” attitude that drives a lot of home improvement purchases has been one of the drivers of this.

I think a bit more diversity is needed.

DGB Tech

Increase in colour diversity needed

Installers have a part to play in this. Fabricators haven’t invested vast sums to expand their colour options just for one or two colours to reign supreme. They want installers to show home owners the rainbow of choice out there, so that they don’t end up picking the safe colour that is Black, just because it goes with their White windows and hides the dirt.

Do we really want streets smattered with Black door after Black door? Surely beauty and kerb appeal comes via diversity and difference? I fear that if there is an overload of Black doors home owners could very quickly become bored of their relatively new door as neighbours copy the trend further down the street.

To stop that from happening, installers, like we do at our place, demonstrate the very wide ranging colours to choose from, be it a composite door or an engineered door. In the past few weeks just about every single door has been a different colour, either sprayed by the good people at Kolorseal or composite doors in all colours by Solidor. I think I have sold just one Black door in recent weeks.

Not every door being installed is Black of course. A quick scroll through Twitter will show that easily enough. There’s all sorts being installed out there, a really eclectic mix in some areas. But again, just look at the doors in your surrounding streets. There is most likely quite a few Black ones already.

I do like the colour. On the right door it can look very classy. Stunning in fact. I just wouldn’t want to see it overused and oversold, reducing the value of the colour. I don’t want it to become the next White door.

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