No Gray Area: Choosing the Right Color Scheme For the Exterior of Your Metal Building

All our buildings are steel, but your metal building doesn’t have to look like a typical metal structure. With the right color scheme, it can transform into an architectural masterpiece, be it a metal garage, a commercial building, or a residential metal home.

Sure, there are ways to add siding of different materials to your exterior, but even if you choose to stick with the metal panels (like most of our customers do), there’s a world of possibilities to explore with exterior metal building color schemes. 

In fact, exploring different colors is one of the best ways to make your steel building design feel unique. When you’re thinking through all the possibilities of a building kit, considering them in vibrant or neutral colors can help bring your ideas to life.

All the components of Worldwide Steel metal building kits are available in a range of color choices, featuring 17 classic, sophisticated options including burnished slate, rustic red, charcoal gray, gallery blue, and light gray. Our color chart is a fantastic resource for visualizing these color options. You can choose your metal roof color, trim color, wainscoting, and wall panel colors individually, creating endless metal building color combinations.

But wait — with just 17 metal building color options, can’t I head to the hardware store and choose from hundreds of paint colors? With Worldwide Steel, you don’t have to, and the benefits are substantial. 

Crafting your ideal Worldwide Steel building means you don’t have to worry about the time or cost of painting your new building after construction. We offer pre-pigmented CentralGuard (powered by Valspar) Panel-Loc Plus metal panels. This means the actual colors are integrated into the material, not just a layer on top. This integration offers an extra layer of protection to your steel building.

The CentralGuard panels consist of a protective backer, dent-resistant steel, rust-resistant Galvalume, two layers of primer for paint adherence, and an outer top coat. These layers, combined with a silicon polyester resin, ensure that the panels are incredibly resistant to sunlight, UV rays, ice, snow, acid rain, and pollution. This is crucial for maintaining the color integrity of your metal roofing and wall panels.

While other pigmented metal buildings show significant fading over time, CentralGuard metal buildings maintain their vibrancy, with minimal fading over 30+ years. The silicon polyester resin also means they resist dirt, staining, and abrasion, increasing the lifespan of the color and the building itself.

How to Choose Your Steel Building Colors

All available colors offer durability and low-maintenance benefits. Lighter colors like polar white and light stone add energy efficiency, reflecting sunlight to keep the building cooler. Conversely, dark colors like charcoal gray or quaker gray can absorb heat, useful in cooler climates.

Consider the building’s planned usage when choosing the best colors. For agricultural buildings, traditional reds or earth tones offer a classic or camouflaging effect. For a commercial building, consider colors that represent your brand or industry. For instance, a landscaping business might opt for green siding. If constructing your building near other structures, color harmony is essential.

Mostly, though, we just want you to choose something you like. To choose a metal building kit you’re excited about. To look at your building and be happy with your color palette choice for decades to come.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. Whether it’s a metal garage, pole barn, or barndominium, we want you to be excited about your color choices. So let’s get started! Check out our color selector tool and start exploring your options with this interactive color visualizer! Just remember, that the colors in the tool are a close representation but may look different on different monitors. What you see as crimson red on your laptop might be a slightly different shade on your metal home or commercial building. The way light hits your building can affect the way the colors appear, as well. Physical samples in the form of color chips are always available upon request.

If you need guidance, our team is ready to help. We can show you examples of Worldwide Steel buildings in various color schemes and discuss the functionality and benefits of different color choices.

At Worldwide Steel, metal building color selection is a journey of creativity. There are no set rules — it’s about what you envision for your building. To start planning your metal building options, explore some of our pre-built customizable building designs, and further refine your choices with our online color selector.

Ready to learn more about designing, building, and using a Worldwide Steel building, or curious about our industry-leading 50-year structural warranty? Contact us for a free quote on your project at 1-800-825-0316.