Whether building in an urban, coastal or rural setting, residential home builders are keen to embrace new season colour trends inside and out.

The colours chosen for a home’s exterior can obviously play a huge role in how the structure looks, feels, and fits with its surrounds. Colours inspired by natural textures, tones and colours allow for design to connect to surrounding environments whether that is coastal, urban or rural.

COLORBOND® steel is a great place to start, with its entire colour palette inspired by the unique Australian landscape; with 22 core colours, and 6 colours in a premium Matt finish. And with a colour range that’s matched by most exterior paint companies to coordinate and complement COLORBOND® steel colours, you can enjoy the process of discovering the perfect colour scheme and design palette for your dream home.

COLORBOND® steel design and colour consultants, Kaela Turgeon, and Jacqui Shmerling, live and breathe colour and design, so their expertise is invaluable for making the most of the colour options and finishes that COLORBOND® steel has to offer. With five different roof pitches, profiles and house styles in this year’s Block, Kaela and Jacqui share their expertise on how colour has played an important role in these home designs.

Latest Trends

This year’s exciting instalment of The Block in Daylesford in rural Victoria is a fantastic opportunity to check out the latest trends. 2025 is all about a warmer colour palette than previously, colours that strongly connect to nature and the surrounding landscape. There’s a number of COLORBOND® steel colours with warm undertones that link to this trend – in particular, colours like Surfmist®, Dune®, Wallaby® and Woodland Grey®.

Working with the landscape

For Kaela, Daylesford’s idyllic setting amongst picturesque wineries and indulgent day spas is one that encourages relaxation and being immersed in this beautiful green landscape. “What we look to is a colour palette that really talks to the landscape...not necessarily immersing itself, but one that works in harmony with the surroundings. It encourages design that recedes into the background and allows the landscape to be the focal point”.

Completely new builds

In contrast to previous years, each house on this year’s Block is a completely new build, with the same basic footprint but each with its own individual design feel. Suddenly, colour is an even more important way to win hearts - something that people can do in their own builds in other parts of Australia. You can use dark to mid toned colours like Monument®, Woodland Grey® and Wallaby® to blend with the surrounding environment. Alternatively, Surfmist® gives you a contrasting colour palette paired with natural materials like timber and stone which connects the home to landscape. Make sure to explore all of the 22 colours in the COLORBOND® steel colour palette.

Popular Homesteads

Jacqui explains that this year’s houses are good examples of Homestead design, a popular trend around Australia: “Homestead design is becoming really prevalent. They're looking for larger blocks of land, building a shed/homestead type setup and it's giving people a bit more space to relax and enjoy their property.” It’s another trend we see that is greatly inspired by nature with its natural textures, tones and materials. Pitched roofs and gables give the opportunity to open the home up and allow the flow from outside to the interior.

The Block colour choices

OK, so what colours have each of the houses gone with?

House 1 is a good example of what designers refer to as 'colour drenching', taking its lead from the COLORBOND® steel roof in the dark, modern (and very popular) colour Monument® Matt. This colour tone has then been used to cascade down the walls, creating cohesion across materials and allowing for the architecture to speak for itself without being interrupted by other colours. Kaela gives it a big tick: “Monument® Matt works beautifully in homestead designs and vast landscapes, as its deep colour paired with subtle texture allows the home to recede, so the surrounding nature becomes the hero”.

Although it’s the year of warmer tones, House 2 has gone with a Wallaby® coloured COLORBOND® steel roof, and like House 1, has used this colour tone as the lead across other materials that again cascades over the rest of the house. And it looks great, as Kaela explains: “It definitely still works within the landscape because Wallaby® can make the greenery pop in front of it. Being a little bit more of a mid-tone colour, Wallaby® allows for a darker window frame... it’s quite a beautiful contrast and it's ‘picture framing’ those windows by bringing the outside in”.

Leaping over to House 3, we find the light colour house (yes, there’s usually one on The Block). Jacqui notes the way it contrasts with the surroundings, in a good way: “Here they’ve used a Surfmist® coloured roof, a soft, modern white that really pops in this environment. It works extremely well as a contrasting colour palette paired with natural materials like timber and stone”. Our tip: when choosing colour make sure you are looking at light and how your colour can change throughout the day and on different aspects.

House 4 is more of a 'character home', with the warm tones of its Basalt® coloured COLORBOND® steel roof perfect for its brick facade. Even with a flat roof, subtly connecting colour from the roof to window frames can create character and cohesiveness. Basalt® Matt's gentle earthy colour works beautifully alongside natural materials like rich timbers and contrasting warm toned bricks – there’s a subtle depth to it and a strong connection to the surrounding greenery.

House 5 rounds off this year’s collection, with a Woodland Grey® coloured COLORBOND® steel roof, a colour with a gentle grey/green undertone. On one hand, it does recede into the background, allowing for the landscape and forests to come alive. However, its warmer tone means it works really well with natural materials - in this case, it’s a beautiful colour to counterbalance charred timber, giving it a little bit less of an industrial feel.

Get some colour help

If you’d like some help, guidance or inspiration, explore the full range of COLORBOND® steel colours right here. Each one is designed and tested for our unique environment, offering options that beautifully complement it.

Our COLORBOND® steel colour tip: order your FREE individual colour samples and take them to your builder. Most major builders have design and colour consultants to help guide your decisions.

If you haven’t selected a builder yet, you can try our supplier locator to connect with builders in your area.