Basalt Colour Guide: What Goes With Colorbond Basalt (2026)

Basalt is Colorbond’s mid-tone grey, noticeably lighter and softer than Monument without going anywhere near charcoal. It’s a popular choice for roofs, fences and garage doors on Melbourne homes, and Dulux makes a matching Basalt for the walls and trim you paint. If you want a grey scheme that stays light and easy to live with, Basalt is the safe middle. This guide covers what pairs with it and how to match your house to it.

What colour is Basalt exactly?

Basalt is a mid-tone grey with a soft, neutral character, sitting well below Monument in depth. Hold the two side by side and Basalt looks a couple of shades lighter and less severe. It’s grey without being cold, and dark enough to feel considered without turning a house heavy.

You’ll see it most on the fixed steel parts of a home: the roof, the gutters and fascia, the fence, and the garage door. Because those parts are expensive to change, Basalt often becomes the anchor colour the rest of the scheme works around, rather than something you pick last.

Colorbond Basalt is the steel colour. Dulux makes a paint colour of the same name, tinted to match, for the surfaces you actually paint. We’ll come back to how to use that below.

Basalt vs Monument vs Woodland Grey

Basalt is the mid-tone, Monument is the dark charcoal, and Woodland Grey sits between them with a green lean. These three are the greys we get asked about most on Melbourne exteriors, and the difference comes down to how dark each one goes and which way the undertone leans. Here’s how they compare.

For the full picture on either neighbour, see our Monument colour guide for the dark charcoal end, and our Woodland Grey colour guide for the warmer, garden-friendly option. If you want dark and dramatic, Monument is the pick. If you want grey that stays soft and light, Basalt is usually the one.

What goes with Basalt?

Whites give you a clean lift, soft greys keep it quiet, and natural timber adds warmth. Because Basalt is a mid-tone rather than a dark anchor, it’s forgiving to pair with and rarely fights its partners.

• Whites. Surfmist (a warm off-white) and Dulux Natural White both sit beautifully against Basalt. A white body with a Basalt roof and trim is a clean, classic look that suits most Melbourne streets.
• Soft greys. Shale Grey sits close to Basalt in tone, so a Shale Grey body with Basalt accents (or the reverse) gives a calm, tone-on-tone scheme with no harsh contrast.
• Timber. A stained front door, a spotted gum or blackbutt deck, or timber screening stops a grey scheme feeling flat and adds a bit of warmth.
• Charcoal and black. Kept to small accents (a door, a light fitting, window frames), a touch of charcoal grounds the scheme without overwhelming the softer grey.

For more full-facade combinations by cladding type, see our exterior house painting ideas for Melbourne homes.

Painting your house to match Basalt

Dulux makes a Basalt paint colour matched to the Colorbond shade, and any good paint shop can tint to a Colorbond colour, so you can match render, weatherboards, fascia and window trim to a Basalt roof. It’s a common request on repaints where the roof and fencing are staying and the walls need to catch up.

A couple of honest cautions before you commit. Matt steel and painted surfaces reflect light differently, so a Dulux Basalt wall will sit very close to the Colorbond roof beside it, not identical. Always brush a sample onto the actual wall and check it morning and afternoon before signing off the whole job. Being a mid-tone, Basalt copes with the Melbourne sun better than a dark charcoal, but the west and north-facing walls still take the most UV, so use a quality exterior system like Dulux Weathershield and proper prep to get the most life out of it.

We paint exteriors to match Colorbond schemes across Melbourne every week, so matching render, weatherboards, fascia and trim to a Basalt roof is familiar ground. Our exterior painting service covers the colour matching and the prep that makes a colour last. Modernize Solutions has painted Melbourne homes since 1987, works exclusively with Dulux systems, carries $20M public liability insurance, and holds 5.0 star reviews from local homeowners.