Bi-fold Doors Color Guide

Modern home design is all about color, and gone are the days of being restricted to a limited palette of neutral tones and shades. With bi-fold doors, homeowners are given the freedom to customize and personalize, to match their stylistic needs and have them powder coated in any color they choose.

On this page, we look at some popular colors for this type of folding door and the factors that might come into play when deciding on a color for your home.

Popular colors for bi-fold doors

Note: In this section, we talk about the European color matching system RAL and show some examples. As computer screens don’t display these colors exactly as they are, we always recommend asking your dealer or builder for color samples before you make your decision.

White bi-fold doors

White bi-fold doors are very popular for a number of reasons. For many of those homeowners whose properties have vinyl windows with white frames, installing bi-fold doors in the same color is generally a high priority.

It’s also true that white doors can help bring lightness to a room—something that doors in other darker colors aren’t able to achieve.

Most bi-fold door companies use the RAL range of colors, a European color-matching system that’s the industry standard for painting aluminum products such as bi-fold doors. What this means is that you aren’t limited to a single shade of white—indeed, the color white has a number of variations, widening your options considerably.

While a Patio White (RAL 9910) is the shade many bi-fold door buyers choose, there are other shades that convey the classic look of white while providing a more contemporary aesthetic at the same time. These include:

Cream

Grey White

Oyster White

White Aluminum

Black/gray bi-fold doors

Aside from white, black and gray are the two best-selling colors for most bi-fold door companies. Gray doors are especially popular because they combine so effectively with contemporary spaces such as open living ‘outrooms’ and outdoor kitchen/dining areas (and their stainless-steel appliances). The gray can be easily matched with the flooring and interior décor, providing more than a touch of modern style and sophistication. W

Black is popular among homeowners who are looking for their sliding, concertina-style doors to make an aesthetic statement and really stand out. They offer a striking contrast against light and dark paint and brickwork and match perfectly with design features such as decking or laminate flooring.

Commonly chosen shades of gray and black include:

Anthracite Gray

Slate Gray

Black Gray

Clear Anodized

Graphite Gray

Jet Black

Split finish color option

With some bi-fold doors, you have the option to choose different colors for either side of the door.

This service helps to match your externally viewed doors with the style and architecture of your house while allowing the internally viewed doors to blend in with your interior décor.

Colors often come with the option of matt, satin and gloss finishes. You can also specify which finish you would like when choosing your internal and external door colors.

Wood-grain effect

It might be that you’re unable to choose between the strength and security of aluminum doors and the rustic, natural appearance of wooden bi-folds.

What might sway your decision is knowing that aluminum bi-fold doors can be painted to closely imitate timber, and avoid all of the problems that come with having wooden doors, such as:

the need to keep them maintained
their tendency to expand or warp in certain weather

The wood-grain effect is applied to the aluminum doors through a special process.

The aluminum is powder coated with a base color and then wrapped in film to create a vacuum, which allows the paint to stick to the frame more effectively.
It’s then cured in a high-temperature oven. This transfers the ink on the film to the metal, creating the wood-grain effect.
• Once the aluminum has cooled, the film is removed to leave a finish that truly resembles natural wood.

Powder Coating

The coloring effect described above is known as powder coating. It is a painting technique that bonds dry paint to metals and other materials (in this case, the aluminum of a bi-fold door) using electrostatically charged powder which is finished off in an oven.

The paint powder initially clings to the metal due to its electrostatic charge before ‘fixing’ in the heat of the oven to create a more permanent bond. The powder coating process produces thicker coats of paints in a single application as it avoids any possible running or sagging that occurs with liquid paint.

Power coating is especially useful for generating a realistic wood-effect on aluminum.

Most bi-fold door manufacturers will be able to offer a wide range of striking wood tones, such as:

Natural Oak

Golden Oak

Walnut

Mahogany

For more information, read our Powder Coating FAQs page.

What to consider when choosing a color for bi-fold doors

Today’s bi-fold doors are available in a huge range of colors and your doors will be a feature of your home for many years to come. Don’t worry too much about following current design trends and tastes – these will eventually fall out of date.

Instead, focus on choosing a color that fits the exterior and interior of your property perfectly, matching certain features—particularly windows—and complementing whatever materials were used to build the home.

Some homeowners choose to match the color of their folding doors with the shades of stone or wood already present in their property’s exterior. This generally allows the doors to blend in with the rest of the home and appear as an original feature rather than something added later.

Other homeowners go in the opposite direction, deciding to make a statement by having the doors really stand out. While this can have a striking effect, there is a risk that the color combinations might clash and be too hard on the eyes.

If you intend to stay in your property for a long time, you have the freedom to go a little wild with your choice of colors. If you plan to move in the near future, however, it’s advised that you opt for a neutral color, as this will be more attractive to prospective buyers. A previous study from real estate website Zillow found that warm, neutral colors such as yellow and light gray helped to add more to a property’s value when applied just before sale.

Experts also suggest the addition of bi-fold doors to a property can increase the resale value by between 5% and 10%.

While color choice is often down to personal tastes, combining new doors with the correct hue and tone can actually save you thousands of dollars under the right circumstances, so choose wisely.

Choosing The Colors for Your Bi-fold Doors