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Your Home, Your Roof, Your Choice: Pro Roof Design Tips

Written By Owens Corning RoofingDate Published 2024-08-30

Imagine giving your home a stunning makeover with just one decision. Sounds exciting, right? That's the power of choosing the right roof shingle color for your home. Forget the notion that roof design is purely functional – it's your opportunity to transform your home's entire look. After all, your roof can account for up to 40% of your home's visible exterior. That's a massive canvas waiting for your personal touch!

By selecting the perfect shingle color, you're not just replacing old, worn-out materials. You're seizing an opportunity to redefine your home's character. Whether you're drawn to sleek modern designs, timeless classics, or something bursting with personality, your roof can make that statement. And it’s what successful roof design is all about. Because when you invest in a new roof, you shouldn’t just like the results. You should love them!

Pro Designer Tips for Finding Roof Inspiration

Roof replacements (or new roof installs) require several decisions, ranging from selecting a reliable contractor to do the job, and the perfect roofing components and shingle color. However, the perfect roof requires more than great materials; it needs a personal touch — yours. Pro Designer, Chad Esslinger, recently reroofed his own home and is sharing his tips for nailing a roof makeover packed with personal style.

Chad Esslinger sitting on a blue couch in his livingroom with eccentric home decor, including a chrome elephant head on the wall

As an accomplished home designer for over 25 years, Chad has had plenty of experience helping homeowners explore color palettes and creating high-end designs with stunning results. But when it came to his own home, Chad went through the same uncertainties as any homeowner. 

“What shingle color should I choose for my home?”

“How will I know it will look good after the project is complete?”

Having already completed other home exterior updates, Chad had an idea of what roof color he wanted for his home. To finalize his decision, he took advantage of the roof design tools from Owens Corning, ensuring his final look matched his inspiration. 

PRO TIP: Owens Corning’s color selection checklist helps simplify your decision process, making it easier for your roof design and aesthetic to come to life. 

Roof Inspiration is All Around You

Chad Esslinger spent time “Roof Gawking™” before his recent renovation to find inspiration for his own roof. Drive around the neighborhood and look at all the houses that you like - Owens Corning calls this Roof Gawking™. It is often the first step in a roof replacement project and can be especially helpful if you find a house like your own with a roof you adore. Suddenly you're doing doubletakes, studying the shingle colors, textures, and designs, imagining how that might look on your own home.

Seeing a variety of real-life homes with different shingles pairings helped Chad narrow down a list of shingle colors that would accent and complement his home’s exterior.

For many homeowners, seeing roof colors in person creates a spark in the imagination. 

Next Steps: Find Roof Colors You Really Love

With fresh shingle color inspiration, you can channel your inner designer. Just like Chad, you can start to get creative and build your own style board of exterior elements, paint colors, porch lighting and furniture, and more. And if you’re not sure where to start, you can explore our curated collection of color palettes and style boards.

Three Owens Corning printed shingle posters spread across the kitchen counter with pantone swatches, paint chips, and brick veneers

Create a Digital Mockup of Your New Roof with Design EyeQ®

Once you have a few color palettes to work with, it’s time to “try them on” your house — or one similar in style and color. The Owens Corning Design EyeQ® roof visualizer allows you to upload an image of your home (or start with one of ours) and start experimenting with new colors and materials for your exterior – including your roof!

You can switch out trim, siding, and doors, giving your home a complete virtual makeover at the touch of a button. The great thing about the Design EyeQ® visualization tool is that you can use it to envision colors you never would have thought you liked. Create a streamlined color palette or go bold with exciting contrast! You’re in total control of your design.

Shingle Color Choices, Delivered to Your Door

One of the exciting parts of working with a professional designer is getting to see the chosen materials and colors together in one place. Now you can add roofing to that same experience-with our no-mess, no-fuss, easy-to-use printed sample posters. With so many color options, sometimes you just need to see them before your vision can really take shape. Printed shingle color posters can help you narrow down your list of favorites to help ensure your roof is everything you dreamed it could be.

Once your shingle posters are delivered to your door, you can compare the granule blend with the rest of your home’s exterior elements. You can compare your printed shingle samples with paint swatches or siding samples, ensuring your home’s exterior is cohesive and reflects your style goal. They also give you an up-close look at individual granules while also letting you step back and view your choice from afar. For example, up close, you may see individual granules in purple and yellow, while from a distance, the color blend becomes a warm brown. 

Chad Esslinger standing in front of his red brick home and black metal door with windows and sidelites, holding an Owens Corning Black Sable printed shingle poster.

Finalize the Roof Color Choice

By using these professional designer tips, you can feel confident in your choices for the aesthetic of your roof. Once you’ve gone through all the inspiration and experimentation and have picked your favorite shingle color(s), a member of the Owens Corning Roofing Contractor Network can assist with the final color selection by bringing real sample boards to the appointment. This gives you the opportunity to see the shingles in full detail, texture, and dimension of color of the final product, helping you confidently say “yes” not only to a final color selection, but to a roof you’ll really love.

Choosing shingles for your roofing project should be an exciting experience. While these tips help you find the perfect shingle color for your home, rest assured that the beauty of Owens Corning shingles is backed with the exceptional functional performance of the Total Protection Roofing System®, so you can enjoy your dream roof for many years to come. Check out our design pages for continued inspiration, virtual tools and exterior color pairings. And don’t forget to try Roof Gawking™ for yourself, in person or online, at roofgawking.com.

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Three shingle swatches side by side, black, brown, and light grey

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