Please help me choose downspout color for my red brick house

11 years ago

Our house is a Georgian style and we have what I'm pretty sure will be 6 inch gutters. The soffits, dentil molding, and gutters are set to be white. I'm wondering now, however, whether we should do the downspouts in a color similar to our brick, lead gray, or standard white. Copper is out of our budget so please don't remind me how nice that would look. Here is a link to photos of our brick color, each with a different color downspout if you scroll down. Please give me your thoughts! :)

Here is a link that might be useful: brick with downspout options

Featured Answer

threeapples
Original Author

11 years ago

athensmom, i don't even know what non half-round gutters look like.

i'll ask my builder. thanks so much.

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Comments (11)

palimpsest
11 years ago
I like the lead grey I thihk.
emmachas_gw Shaffer
11 years ago
Your home is going to be beautiful, threeapples. Your determination to get all the details right will pay big dividends. You are getting such wonderful advice here from lots of experts. I hesitate to chime in, but don't want you to make the same mistake I made.

Our home was a Georgian similar to yours. Our brick, a Boral wood mold in 'Fairfield', was almost identical to the brick you selected. Windows, trim, columns, etc were white. Everyone involved in the planning assumed white gutters and downspouts were the best choice. They were wrong. Those white downspouts were the only thing I did not LOVE about our house! IMO, downspouts should do their job, blend in and disappear. The white was so very obvious against the brick.

The rear elevation was all brick with brick columns. The only white was trim, French doors, and balcony posts. We used copper downspouts there. Over a few months the copper developed a nice brownish patina and disappeared into the brick.

IMO, any option is better than white.
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threeapples
Original Author
11 years ago
emmachas, we are all so lucky to have this forum and i've gained invaluable advice here.

i'm disappointed about your gutters and downspouts, but glad you at least have the nice copper ones in some areas.

do you think i should do a colored gutter in addition to the colored downspout?

will a colored gutter "take away" from our white dentil molding?

thanks again for your great advice. :)
palimpsest
11 years ago
One of your options shows a white gutter with colored downspouts because the cornice of the building is white. I would probably do that. Make it blend with whatever the background is.
emmachas_gw Shaffer
11 years ago
With our new home, I will postpone that decision until the exterior is complete so that we can see different samples in place. But I think you are right, palimpsest. The white gutter would blend with the dentil moulding, colored downspout with the brick.
I'll be following this, threeapples :)....We can all learn together!
threeapples
Original Author
11 years ago
i'll call my builder first thing tomorrow morning to make sure we can do a colored downspout. i'll be so irritated if we can't. anyway, i'll post back and let you all know.

are you building another Georgian, emmachas?
ohlaches
11 years ago
Hi Threeapples,

Our house is red brick and stone, we did white (well, i think the color was called linen) gutters and our downspouts are a dark brown. We wanted copper, but not the cost, so we tried to match what copper looks like when it patinas. We really like the way it looks.
athensmomof3
11 years ago
We did copper. It more than tripled our gutter budget and has been a pain. Apparently, all copper is special order these days from our little town gutter people because it is so expensive. We did mix copper plated gutters and copper down spouts. Apparently they age the same and you cannot tell the difference, even right next to each other. What about a bronze color? There are several that look like aged copper - and some that are not attractive. . . This was a hard decision for us and we decided the upgrade was worth it (particularly with mixing the true copper with the plated copper). If you are willing to do something other than half round gutters, you can do all plated copper and save a fortune! If we had done red brick I may have done an aged copper/bronze gutter. With our greige brick it didn't work though. . .
palimpsest
11 years ago
Non half round are called K gutters and they are flattened on the back and bottom and have a lip on the front. You DO know what they look like, you just don't realize it :) They are ubiquitous.
Xclusive
11 years ago
With your color scheme of red and white I agree it would look nice with white gutters and conductor/leader heads and downspouts in a color to match the brick. On houses with darker colors such as light brown or tan brick I pesonally like when gutters are darker color such as brown for contrast. Now this is all contingent on the fact that copper isn't in the budget because if it is I would definitely go with it(it wasn't in ours)...lol :) Can't wait to see your finished build.