Heritage colour schemes: getting a period house right
19 July 2026 · 3 min read
Federation, inter-war and post-war houses each had their own palettes and their own logic. What suits what, and where approval may be needed.
A period house painted in a contemporary scheme rarely looks contemporary. It usually just looks wrong, because the colours are fighting the proportions and detail they sit on.
Getting it right is not about historical accuracy for its own sake. Period palettes worked because they were designed around the way these houses are built.
Victorian and early Federation, roughly 1890–1910
Deep, rich and layered. These houses have substantial detail — brackets, fretwork, mouldings, cast iron — and the schemes were designed to articulate it.
**Typical palette:** deep reds, bottle greens, ochres, browns and creams. Walls in a mid tone, with darker trim and lighter highlights picking out the mouldings.
**The logic:** three or four colours, used to separate the elements. Body colour on the wall, a darker colour on the frames and sashes, a contrasting colour on the detail, and often a fourth on the front door.
Federation and Edwardian, roughly 1900–1920
Lighter and softer than what came before, and this is the classic Perth character house.
**Typical palette:** cream and soft off-white bodies, with deep red, forest green or brown trim. Terracotta and unpainted red face brick as part of the composition. Roofs in terracotta or red.
**The logic:** the brickwork is a colour in the scheme. Federation houses were designed with face brick and render as contrasting elements, which is exactly why painting the brick on one of these usually flattens it.
Inter-war bungalow, roughly 1920–1940
The Mount Lawley and Maylands stock. Simpler massing, broader eaves, more horizontal.
**Typical palette:** warmer and earthier — soft greens, tans, dusty pinks, cream. Trim in a deeper version of the body colour rather than a strong contrast.
**The logic:** fewer colours, more tonal. Two or three, closely related.
Art deco, roughly 1930–1945
The deco apartment stock in Maylands and Mount Lawley.
**Typical palette:** pale creams and soft pastels with strong accent lines. Rendered curves in a light body colour, with a contrasting band picking out the horizontal emphasis.
**The logic:** the colour follows the geometry. Deco detail is about horizontal lines and curves, and the paint scheme should trace them.
Post-war, 1945–1965
Simple, light, and unfussy.
**Typical palette:** pale walls, white trim, and often a single accent on the front door.
The general rules that survive
**Use three colours, not one.** A period house painted entirely in one colour loses all its detail. Body, trim, and a highlight is the traditional structure and it still works.
**Darker recedes, lighter advances.** Traditional schemes used darker colours on window sashes so the openings read as voids, and lighter colours on the frames and mouldings so the detail came forward. Reversing this makes a house look flat.
**Do not paint what was never painted.** Face brick, tuckpointing, limestone and terracotta were design elements. Painting them is the single most common way to lose a period house's character, and it is close to irreversible.
**Let the roof lead.** The roof is the largest single colour on the building and usually the one you are not changing. Build the scheme around it.
Approval may be required
Several Perth councils have character or heritage protection provisions. Fremantle, Subiaco, Vincent, Bayswater and Guildford all have areas where external colour changes on a contributing property may need approval, and painting previously unpainted brickwork very often does. Check with the local authority before committing to a scheme, not after.
Where to find real references
Council heritage guidelines often publish recommended palettes for their areas, and they are free. Major manufacturers publish heritage ranges researched against surviving original schemes. And the most useful reference is the street — a period house nearby that has been done well is worth more than any chart.