An Expert Guide to Choosing Millboard Decking Colours

With the right pick, your decking colour can significantly enhance or complement your home’s style and visual appeal. On the other hand, the wrong choice can become a distraction and clash with the existing design elements or surroundings. But deciding on the right colour can be pretty challenging, given the various options available. 

Research shows that around 80% of homeowners are inclined to go for the natural wood look, which is exactly what the Millboard decking material collection is inspired by. This composite decking material is made to closely mimic the wood’s look, texture, and feel. With the Millboard’s collection, you’ll have quite a wide range of colours to choose from. 

But obviously, some colours and shades will look better in some areas and types of homes than others. This guide will help you overcome the Millboard colour choice hurdle and create a beautiful and cohesive look for your outdoor space. 

Let’s dig right in!

Are Millboard Decking Colours Consistent?

Millboard decking is a 100% wood-free composite material moulded from original timber and hand-coloured for a fine finish. Millboard strives to make all decking colours as consistent as possible, but the shades per batch may vary slightly during the manufacturing and colouring processes. It’s advisable that you get all your boards from the same batch for colour consistency. In case you order different batches, it’s recommended to mix the batches up to blend the colours.

Factors To Consider When Choosing Millboard Decking Colour

Before choosing a Millboard colour, there are a few things you need to consider so the colour stays in line with your home’s theme, style, and deck use. Here are some of the things that will influence your decking colour choice: 

Your Home’s Style

Your deck is an extension of your home, and you should aim to create a cohesive look between this and the rest of the design elements. Depending on your home’s style, consider the following when picking colours:

• Traditional-style home: Go for brown, white, and natural tones, as they fit the style better.
• Modern homes: This type of home works well with black, grey, and white colours that present a clean, sharp, and sleek look.
• Rustic-style homes: Opt for earthy, weathered, natural, or brown hues to complement the rustic style and add an element of timeless design to your home. 
• Beach homes: Blue, greyish-blue, weathered, and driftwood decking colours complement beach homes and create an inviting relaxed feel. 

Take a look at the general style of your home and you’ll choose a deck colour that blends with the existing style well to produce a beautiful contrast.

Existing Exterior Colours

When matching your deck with your home’s exterior paint colours, it’s beneficial to use a colour wheel for inspiration. 

Identify the dominant, accent, and secondary colours from your home’s siding, outdoor furniture, and doors. Follow the combinations of colour theory to come up with the best complementary colours. For example:

• Analogous Colours: This involves three colours adjacent to one another. For example, blue/violet/purple or yellow/amber/orange on the colour wheel. 
• Triadic Colours: This colour pairing involves using three colours which are separated equally apart from one another. An example of this is blue, yellow and red. 
• Complementary Colours: When you want something to stand out, use complementary contrasting colours. You can find these as opposites on the colour wheel. Example from the image above, red/green, blue/orange, and yellow/purple. 
• Split Complementary Colours: This involves three colours. Generally, you take the colour you’re considering, let’s do purple. Then you take the colours which are adjacent to the opposite colour on both sides. Using the colour wheel above, this would be purple, amber, and chartreuse as they fall next to the opposite colour of purple which is yellow. 
• Double Complementary Colours: This involves using four colours but in two sets. For example, yellow/purple and blue/orange. 

The best practice is to settle on a tone that will complement the dominant colour you’re thinking about using. 

Visual Connection Between Indoor and Outdoor Space

Look at the building flow between your home’s interior design elements and the deck. You need to think about how your deck will look from both inside and outside. Here’s some things to think about: 

• Indoor/Outdoor Divider: If your home has wide windows, consider how your interior flooring matches with your deck. Creating that smooth transition makes your home more appealing and seamless. Look at this stunning waterfront home at Burleigh Beach, who did a phenomenal job with this.
• Indoor/Outdoor Furniture: Identify the general theme of your outdoor space from the colours and type of furniture you have. A colour like black for your deck is bold and requires you to have furniture and outdoor décor that complements it, especially lighter shades for better contrast. Brown hues and darker greys fit in most situations.
• Interior/Exterior Paint Colour: Do you want the two elements to complement, match, or contrast each other? Generally, warm exterior colours work well with brown while cool colours pair perfectly with grey.
• Functionality of Indoor/Outdoor Space: What do you use your outdoor space for? For instance, a relaxing area can do with lighter colours while a busy family space might necessitate darker shades to hide stains. 

These are just some things to think about when considering the indoor / outdoor transition. 

Your Location

Where your home is located is also another factor to have in mind when picking a deck colour. Here’s some examples: 

• Forest: brown hues will blend perfectly with natural surroundings, such as a wooded area with a lot of vegetation. Other shades like grey might look out of place.
• Coastal: For a coastal home, grey or driftwood makes an excellent choice, exquisitely giving off the beachy vibe.
• Desert: The natural desert, brown, and dusty colour can work well with golden-brown hues if you want to create a match. For contrast, go for smoked or limed oak. 
• City: Grey and other lighter hues like lime and ash represent a more modern city feel than the shades of brown that are considered more traditional. But black is also a good contrast colour, like in this captivating harbour home, to use in the city surroundings and makes an excellent fit. 
• Farm: Farm houses and their surroundings give a traditional style vibe and neutral tones work best here. You can pick various shades of brown for a rustic look or go white and your deck will still match with this style. 
• Riverside: Your riverside home is all about a good view. Enhance it with a greyish-blue deck to complete the water-washed look that fits into this location.
• Mountains: If your home is in the mountains, neutral hues will work best. Whether you want to go deep or light brown, or rusty red like Jarrah. Any neutral hue will look great.

These are just some of the colours vs locations you could try for your deck colour. 

Landscaping Features

The deck colour also depends on the theme of your garden. Let’s take a closer look. 

• Concrete/Stone/Brick: If your garden is more concrete, stone, or brick, you might want to keep the theme with an earthy colour, like deep brown, grey, or tan.  
• Greenery/Shrubs/Trees: Look for colours that complement green such as reddish-brown. Neutral colours also work great in these situations. 
• Cottage Style Flower Garden: Naturally, a cottage style flower garden is a charming and informal space full of colour. You want to blend it with deck colours that support that natural look without taking away the garden’s attention. Brown hues are a perfect fit, like in this mesmerising garden by Inge Jabara.
• Desert/Rock: You can enhance a desert garden by choosing lime or smoked oak hues. A golden hue can also add a touch of elegance and fit in with the style. These colours will make a statement without looking misplaced from the theme.
• Mediterranean: You want to enhance the coastal look with shades of grey, blue, and ash.
• Tropical: Going by the theme of tropical landscape and architecture, you want to pick colours that are both aesthetically appealing and energy saving. In this case, the shades of blue, grey, lime, and ash make excellent matches for the surroundings.
• Oriental: For a garden style featuring lots of plants, water and rocks, to exude a sense of peace, tranquillity and quiet, black, darker grey, and deep brown are a great choice. The point is to keep the natural look going.

These are just colour suggestions to consider when you have a themed landscape. 

Millboard Decking Varieties

As mentioned earlier, Millboard composite decking recreates the look of natural wood. Moulded under different textures, it comes in two deck board styles: enhanced grain and weathered oak. These styles are available in a wide range of colours, with some that are more traditional and rustic while others are suitable for modern and coastal homes. They’re described below: 

Millboard Enhanced Grain

The Enhanced Grain Millboard collection is moulded to exude style and strength of natural oak. Through hand colouring, this material recreates the detail found in timber by the look and feel of it. It also doesn’t look artificially glossy. Enhanced grain Millboard is slip-resistant, and all the shades boast a beautiful grain. 

The following is a list of colour choices available:

• Brushed Basalt

This dark stormy grey hue with a distinct blue undertone is your choice if you want one that will complement your modern home. It gives off an authentic greyish painted wood colour that creates a smooth transition between the indoor and outdoor areas. 

Being a grey-blue hue, brushed basalt can work with cool colours that leave your home looking relaxing and trendy. Thus, it’s an excellent choice for a contemporary home.

• Smoked Oak

This highly versatile decking colour fits well with any home style and decor. Because it’s relatively neutral, it brings out the best of a space without taking all the attention from its surroundings. It’s a modern colour as well but it still doesn’t lose its wood-like appearance, natural beauty, and influence. 

The laws of science show that lighter colours absorb less heat. So, with its lighter hue, smoked oak makes a good choice for hot regions, keeping your deck cooler. 

• Antique Oak

Antique oak is manufactured to look like natural, nicely aged, tropical hardwood, such as mahogany. While it’s best suited to a traditional home, it’s also ideal for a modern home. It can complement modern design elements well, without stealing the show. The Millboard antique oak has several hues, meeting a wider range of design and aesthetic needs of homeowners, designers, builders, and architects.

• Jarrah

This colour is inspired by another popular hardwood: the Australian Eucalyptus tree. Jarrah features a deep, rusty, red hue. It has a warm, exotic, luxurious, and earthy tone that makes it a lovely choice for every type of home. 

Moreover, it works well with traditional home styles and offers a timeless appeal to contemporary designs without looking out of place.

• Coppered Oak

Coppered oak is another hardwood-inspired colour imitating the quality and likeness of teak and Ipe. As a highly rich colour, it’s a fitting choice for any home style, especially one that incorporates hardwood. Overall, it’s a deep but inviting decking colour that will enhance and complete your outdoor experience with its natural vibrance.

• Limed Oak

You can easily recognise limed oak from its almost distressed, sun-bleached timber look. A good choice for sunnier regions and modern homes, limed oak gives you this seaside feel. It has this beautiful, washed-out look that complements most floor types, elevating your outdoor space, as well as creating a smooth transition between your indoor and outdoor areas. Plus, it’s a versatile colour with its clean, sophisticated, and stunning look.

• Burnt Cedar

This is a colour inspiration from the Yakisugi, the Japanese traditional method of wood preservation. By burning the wood, it develops superior qualities, including a striking aesthetic appeal and rich colour. The burnt look fuses the traditional and contemporary. It makes the wood elegant and a bit dramatic because of its charring effect. Depending on how deep the wood burns, you can get various shades. 

Millboard’s burnt cedar decking colour mimics the burnt wood look. It has a warm undertone and is an absolute display of elegance and class. It can go with any style, design, and region. Naturally, you can style black with any other colour.

• Golden Oak

With its bright, airy, golden colour, it adds charm and a touch of luxury to any space. It blends well in standard, modern, casual, or luxury homes and works particularly well when paired with neutral colours. 

Just like any other gold-coloured material, Millboard decking in golden oak infuses a space with light and vitality.

Millboard Weathered Oak

Another selection of Millboard is the Weathered Oak range, which features three hues. Weathered oak colours are elegant, beautiful, and timeless. As with other Millboard decking materials, these boards are hand-moulded and made to retain the beauty of weathered, natural timber, including the texture. Some options include: 

• Vintage Oak

This colour consists of rich, darker, earthy hues, resembling and evoking the feel of well-aged oak. The board’s texture adds to the weathered aspect, giving them a timeless look. 

Vintage oak is reminiscent of a peaceful retreat in a country home, perfect for an abode surrounded by natural landscapes. It can also work well in a modern home, and with its texture and finish, it’s ideal for outdoor spaces that require a refined finish. 

• Driftwood

Driftwood literally means timber pieces that have been washed ashore by tides and waves. It’s known for its beautiful finish and greyish-blue hue. It gives off a relaxed vibe, so it’s a great option for coastal homes. Its sea-washed look is unique and makes your home look even more sophisticated. 

You don’t even have to worry about maintenance, rotting, or warping like natural wood. Because the board bears the colour, look, and character of natural driftwood, the colour is an excellent décor element for your outdoor features.

• Embered 

An excellent choice for decking in any home style, embered is inspired by Shou-Sugi-Ban, another Japanese technique for sealing wood with a flame. The method leaves the wood pitch black, making the decking colour a distinct element in any space. 

Although black stands out in the backdrop of bright colours, embered blends just as well with darker hues. 

When in Doubt, Go Neutral

Choosing decking colours is an art, but it shouldn’t be rocket science. With the variety of choices given above, getting the right pick can sometimes prove to be challenging. If you’re unsure which colours will work best for your deck, go natural. Fortunately, Millboard composite decking colour options come in neutral wood-like hues and tones. 

You have choices, like antique oak, Jarrah, and golden oak, that can fit any space, especially if you’re looking for a simple deck style. Typically, all shades of brown are neutral and compatible with any style, including traditional, modern, and rustic designs. 

Takeaway

Your choice of Millboard decking colour can help enhance your home’s style. Whether you’re looking for matching colours or remarkable contrasts, you’ll find the perfect one for your home. But, of course, the decking colour you select will depend on certain factors, such as the design and location of your home.