By Thomas Drake, Owner — A New Leaf Painting | Jacksonville Exterior Color Trends 2025
As 2025 closes out, we’re looking back at another full year of exterior painting projects across Jacksonville and Northeast Florida — and the color story this year was one of the most defined we’ve seen in a long time. Clear winners emerged. A few longtime favorites finally started fading out. And one color family made a move that frankly surprised us with how fast it spread across completely different Jacksonville neighborhoods.
This is our annual look at what Jacksonville homeowners actually chose in 2025 — not what national paint brands told them to choose, not what was trending in New York or Los Angeles, but what landed on homes right here across Mandarin, Southside, Arlington, Baymeadows, Deerwood, Jacksonville Beach, Julington Creek, and Fleming Island.
After 25 years and more than 5,000 exterior painting projects across Jacksonville and Northeast Florida, we have a front-row seat to how color moves through this market. Here’s what 2025 looked like — and where 2026 is headed.
The 2025 Jacksonville Color Story: What Defined the Year
Before we go neighborhood by neighborhood, here are the five macro color movements that defined Jacksonville’s exterior painting landscape in 2025.
Warm whites took over. If 2025 had one dominant color story in Jacksonville, it was the surge of warm whites and soft creams on exterior body applications. Not stark, blue-based whites — warm, livable whites with yellow, pink, or beige undertones that read as refined and coastal without feeling clinical. Sherwin-Williams Alabaster was our single most requested exterior body color of 2025 across the entire Jacksonville market. This wasn’t a fluke — warm white performs exceptionally well on Florida stucco in intense UV, holds its warmth without the color shift that cool whites show over time, and photographs beautifully for listing photos and social media.
Sage green was the biggest mover. No color family gained more ground in Jacksonville in 2025 than muted sage green. Soft, gray-green tones — earthy, desaturated, nothing limey or bright — appeared across neighborhoods that historically had very little green on exterior applications. The combination of sage body color with crisp white trim became the most commented-on exterior combination we delivered all year. It works particularly well against Jacksonville’s live oak canopy and established Florida landscaping, and the muted, low-saturation tone holds up in Florida’s UV environment far better than brighter greens would.
Navy doors became standard. Deep navy blue front doors crossed from trend to standard in Jacksonville in 2025. Paired with warm white or greige body colors, a navy front door is now one of the most common accent color requests we receive across every Jacksonville neighborhood. Matte black doors continued to hold their position on contemporary architecture. Between these two choices, the era of the red front door in Jacksonville is largely over.
Cool grays aged out. The blue-gray and purple-gray exterior body colors that dominated Jacksonville from roughly 2015 through 2022 continued their exit in 2025. These tones have shown poor UV performance on Florida stucco — they develop an uneven, chalky appearance faster than warm neutrals — and they’re increasingly reading as dated in Jacksonville’s market. If your home currently has a cool gray exterior, you are squarely in the majority of homeowners coming to us for a refresh right now.
Two-tone garage doors emerged. One of the most interesting micro-trends of 2025 was homeowners updating garage door color as part of their exterior repaint rather than leaving it in builder-standard white. Matching the garage door to the body color or choosing a complementary accent tone — deep charcoal, warm greige, or soft sage — had an outsized impact on curb appeal at a relatively low additional cost. We expect this to continue growing in 2026.
Neighborhood-by-Neighborhood: 2025 Color Recap
Mandarin
Mandarin had one of the most interesting color years of any Jacksonville neighborhood in 2025. This established community — one of Jacksonville’s most beloved residential areas — saw a genuine refresh cycle underway as homeowners with aging cool gray and flat tan exteriors moved toward more current warm neutrals and, in a meaningful number of cases, sage green.
What Mandarin chose in 2025: Warm greiges and updated beiges led the volume — Sherwin-Williams Accessible Beige, Wool Skein, and Antique White were among our most applied body colors in Mandarin this year. These are evolutionary updates for a neighborhood that has always leaned warm, just moving from the flatter, browner tones of older construction toward the more nuanced warm neutrals that read as current.
The sage green movement hit Mandarin hard in the second half of 2025. Mandarin’s mature tree canopy — live oaks, magnolias, established hedges — creates a natural setting that sage green complements better than almost anywhere else in Jacksonville. Several of our most photographed Mandarin projects this year featured soft sage body colors with Sherwin-Williams Extra White trim and navy front doors. The combination was consistently striking.
Trim choices in Mandarin: Mandarin leaned toward warm whites on trim rather than stark bright whites — Alabaster and Shoji White on trim rather than Extra White or High Reflective White. This reflects the neighborhood’s established, grounded character. The softer contrast feels appropriate against mature Mandarin landscaping in a way that high-contrast bright white doesn’t always achieve.
What’s coming in Mandarin in 2026: Expect more sage green, more warm whites on body, and continued retreat of cool gray. The renovation and refresh cycle in Mandarin is active and showing no signs of slowing.
Southside Jacksonville
Southside is Jacksonville’s professional corridor — Deerwood, Baymeadows, and the surrounding communities — and its color choices reflect that identity. Clean, polished, and confidence-projecting without being bold or polarizing.
What Southside chose in 2025: Warm whites and warm greiges dominated Southside exterior repaints this year. The Southside homeowner is generally optimizing for curb appeal and resale value — choices that read as sharp and well-maintained from the street without taking color risks that could limit buyer appeal. Sherwin-Williams Agreeable Gray, Accessible Beige, and Alabaster were the volume leaders across the Southside market in 2025.
The matte black door trend is strongest in Southside of any Jacksonville neighborhood. Contemporary architecture throughout the Deerwood and Baymeadows corridor suits matte black accents — doors, garage doors, light fixtures, house numbers — and the combination with warm white or light greige body color has become something close to a signature look for renovated Southside properties.
Stucco considerations in Southside: A significant portion of Southside’s residential stock features stucco construction from the 1990s and early 2000s that is now showing its age — hairline cracks, surface chalking, and fading cool gray body colors that are ready for replacement. Stucco painting in Jacksonville on homes of this vintage requires proper surface preparation — pressure washing, crack repair, caulking, and dedicated exterior primer — before any body color is applied. The color choice is only as good as the surface beneath it.
What’s coming in Southside in 2026: More warm whites, continued matte black accents, and a growing interest in the warm charcoal and dark green body colors appearing on high-end renovation projects. Southside’s renovation cycle is robust and the color choices are getting bolder on updated properties.
Arlington
Arlington is one of Jacksonville’s most architecturally interesting neighborhoods for exterior color because of its significant stock of mid-century ranch homes — a building type that has its own color logic distinct from the stucco Mediterranean Revival and contemporary construction that dominates the rest of Jacksonville.
What Arlington chose in 2025: Arlington’s mid-century ranches went two directions in 2025 — classic warm neutrals on homes getting straightforward updates, and genuinely bold mid-century-appropriate color on homes getting full renovations. Olive greens, warm terracottas, earthy yellows, and deep forest greens appeared on Arlington ranches in 2025 in a way we haven’t seen in years. These colors honor the mid-century architecture’s original spirit and look intentional rather than risky when applied correctly.
For Arlington’s more conventional residential stock, warm greiges and updated tans led the volume — similar to the broader Jacksonville market but with a slightly warmer, more earthy quality that suits the neighborhood’s character.
Wood siding painting in Arlington: Arlington has a higher concentration of homes with wood siding and wood accent elements than most Jacksonville neighborhoods — a legacy of its mid-century construction era. Wood siding painting in Jacksonville requires specific preparation: thorough pressure washing, identification and repair of any rotten wood, spot priming of bare wood, and two full coats of a flexible exterior finish that handles Jacksonville’s humidity-driven expansion and contraction. Sherwin-Williams Duration and Emerald Exterior in satin finish is our standard recommendation for wood siding applications across Jacksonville.
What’s coming in Arlington in 2026: The mid-century renovation wave in Arlington is accelerating. Expect more intentional, architecture-appropriate color choices on renovated properties — and continued warm neutral dominance on standard repaints.
Baymeadows
Baymeadows sits at the intersection of established Jacksonville residential and professional corridor, with a housing stock that spans from 1980s construction through more recent development. The color choices here are practical and value-conscious — homeowners optimizing for maintenance, longevity, and resale.
What Baymeadows chose in 2025: Warm neutrals led every other category by volume in Baymeadows. Accessible Beige, Agreeable Gray, and similar warm tones made up the majority of exterior repaints we completed in this area in 2025. These are reliable, broadly appealing choices that hold up well in Florida’s UV environment and photograph well for listing photos.
The garage door update trend was particularly strong in Baymeadows in 2025. The neighborhood’s older housing stock often features dated builder-standard white garage doors that stand in stark contrast to updated body colors. Painting garage doors to complement the new body color — or to a deliberate accent tone — was one of the highest-ROI updates we delivered in Baymeadows this year.
Vinyl siding painting in Baymeadows: A portion of Baymeadows’ older residential stock features vinyl or aluminum siding. Vinyl siding painting in Jacksonville requires specific product selection — not all exterior paints bond properly to vinyl, and painting vinyl the wrong color can cause buckling and warping if the new color has a significantly lower LRV than the original and absorbs substantially more heat. Sherwin-Williams VinylSafe color technology addresses this directly and should be the baseline for any vinyl siding painting project in Jacksonville.
What’s coming in Baymeadows in 2026: Continued warm neutral dominance, more garage door updates, and growing interest in sage green on the neighborhood’s newer construction with landscaping that suits it.
Deerwood
Deerwood is Jacksonville’s premier established luxury community and its color choices reflect that — sophisticated, considered, and leaning toward palettes that signal quality and permanence rather than trend-following.
What Deerwood chose in 2025: Deerwood went warm and elevated in 2025. Soft whites and warm creams dominated new exterior paint projects in the community — Alabaster, Shoji White, and comparable warm tones on body with crisp Extra White on trim. The effect on Deerwood’s larger estate homes is consistently striking — the warm white body against mature landscaping and the community’s natural setting reads as timeless rather than trendy.
The most interesting Deerwood development of 2025 was the emergence of warm charcoal and deep green body colors on the community’s most significantly renovated properties. These bolder choices require Deerwood’s larger lot sizes and mature landscaping to work — on a smaller home, a deep charcoal body can feel heavy. On a well-proportioned Deerwood estate surrounded by established oaks and manicured grounds, it’s genuinely impressive. We expect this to influence more Deerwood color decisions in 2026.
Premium product requirements in Deerwood: Deerwood homeowners investing in exterior repaints at the level these properties demand should not be compromising on paint product. Sherwin-Williams Emerald Exterior is the right product for Deerwood — its advanced UV resistance, superior coverage, and lifetime limited warranty match the investment level of these properties. Duration Exterior is a strong product but Emerald is the specification for premium residential painting in Jacksonville’s luxury market.
Jacksonville Beach
Jacksonville Beach operates on coastal color logic — the combination of salt air, intense reflected light off the water, and the visual context of a beach community pushes toward a specific and well-defined palette.
What Jacksonville Beach chose in 2025: Whites led every other color category by a significant margin in Jacksonville Beach in 2025. Bright whites, warm whites, soft whites — the beach community’s dominant color is white in its many variations. Sherwin-Williams Extra White and High Reflective White on trim are essentially standard across the Jacksonville Beach market. Body colors in the white-to-soft-cream range dominated new exterior painting projects.
Coastal blues were the strongest non-white movement in Jacksonville Beach in 2025. Soft, muted blue-grays and dusty coastal tones appeared on a growing number of beach area homes — not bright or Caribbean, but the kind of sophisticated, weathered coastal blue that feels architecturally appropriate in a beach setting and develops beautifully as it ages in salt air.
Salt air and product selection at the beach: Exterior painting in Jacksonville’s coastal communities is not the same as interior Jacksonville. Salt air accelerates paint film degradation and requires product selection that accounts for coastal exposure. We specify Sherwin-Williams Emerald Exterior on all Jacksonville Beach exterior projects — its advanced resin technology provides the salt air resistance that inland products don’t deliver at the same level. This is a non-negotiable product specification for coastal exterior painting in Jacksonville.
Rotten wood repair at the beach: Jacksonville Beach’s older housing stock — wood frame construction from the 1960s through 1980s — has significant rotten wood repair needs before exterior painting can proceed properly. Rotten wood repair in Jacksonville coastal communities is not optional maintenance — painting over deteriorating wood traps moisture, accelerates rot, and causes paint failure within one to two years regardless of product quality. Every coastal exterior painting project we complete includes thorough assessment for rotten wood and complete repair before any primer or paint is applied.
Julington Creek
Julington Creek is one of Jacksonville’s most family-oriented and well-established master-planned communities, with HOA color governance that keeps the neighborhood’s palette cohesive and appealing.
What Julington Creek chose in 2025: Warm neutrals dominated Julington Creek exterior repaints throughout 2025 — consistent with the broader Jacksonville market but with the narrowing effect of HOA color restrictions that keeps the most polarizing choices off the table. Accessible Beige, Balanced Beige, and warm tans led volume. Sage green made a strong appearance in Julington Creek in the second half of the year on homes where landscaping supported it and HOA approval was obtained.
HOA navigation in Julington Creek: Julington Creek’s HOA color approval process should be the first step in any exterior painting project in the community — not an afterthought after you’ve fallen in love with a color. Our team has navigated Julington Creek’s approval process many times and can help ensure your color submission is complete, properly documented, and positioned for approval without unnecessary back-and-forth.
Fleming Island
Fleming Island’s Clay County setting, larger lot sizes, and mix of architectural styles create more color freedom than many governed Jacksonville communities — and homeowners are using it.
What Fleming Island chose in 2025: Fleming Island had one of the most diverse color years of any Jacksonville community in 2025. Warm neutrals and updated tans remained the volume leaders, but bolder choices appeared at higher frequency than in previous years. Deep greens, warm charcoals, and saturated navy tones appeared on Fleming Island homes with updated architecture and landscaping — a reflection of the community’s active renovation cycle.
The garage door update trend was prominent in Fleming Island — matching garage door color to body or choosing a complementary accent tone rather than leaving builder white. On Fleming Island’s larger homes where the garage door represents a significant portion of the front facade, this update has outsized curb appeal impact.
Wood and fiber cement siding in Fleming Island: Fleming Island has a higher proportion of wood and fiber cement siding homes than most Jacksonville communities — a legacy of its late 1990s and early 2000s construction era when HardiePlank was becoming the premium siding choice. Exterior painting on fiber cement in Jacksonville requires specific preparation and product application. Fiber cement must be clean, dry, and properly primed before topcoat application, and two full coats of Sherwin-Williams Duration or Emerald Exterior in satin or semi-gloss is the right specification for long-term performance in Florida’s climate.
What’s Fading Out Heading Into 2026
Cool gray body colors — Blue-gray and purple-gray exterior body tones are aging out of the Jacksonville market. They’ve shown poor UV performance on Florida stucco and they’re reading as dated. If your home has a cool gray exterior, 2026 is a strong year to refresh.
Flat tan without dimension — The single-tone flat tan that was the default choice for builder-grade Jacksonville construction for two decades is being replaced by more nuanced warm neutrals with actual depth and warmth. The update doesn’t require dramatic change — moving from a flat builder tan to Accessible Beige or a warm greige is evolutionary, but the difference at the curb is significant.
Red front doors — Jacksonville’s red front door moment has largely passed. Navy, matte black, and deep green have replaced red as the dominant accent door choices across the market.
Stark, blue-based whites — Bright cool whites that read as clinical rather than coastal are giving way to warm whites with yellow or beige undertones that perform better in Florida’s UV environment and age more gracefully on stucco.
What 2026 Looks Like From Here
Based on what we saw move in 2025 and what we’re hearing from homeowners planning projects for early next year, here’s where Jacksonville’s exterior color market is headed in 2026:
Sage green continues its expansion — we expect it to become as mainstream in Jacksonville in 2026 as warm greige has been for the past five years. Warm whites consolidate their dominance as the primary body color family across the market. Bold body colors — deep greens, warm charcoals, muted navy — continue growing on high-end renovation projects with the architecture and landscaping to support them. And garage door color updates become a standard line item on exterior repaint projects rather than an optional add-on.
Ready to Paint in 2026?
If you’re planning an exterior painting project in Jacksonville in the new year — whether you’re in Mandarin, Southside, Arlington, Baymeadows, Deerwood, Jacksonville Beach, Julington Creek, Fleming Island, or anywhere across Northeast Florida — A New Leaf Painting is ready.
We’re Jacksonville’s most reviewed painting contractor — 751+ verified five-star reviews across Google, Angi, Nextdoor, Facebook, Yelp, Houzz, BBB, and HomeAdvisor. Our licensed and insured team has completed more than 5,000 residential exterior painting projects across Northeast Florida since 2001, using exclusively Sherwin-Williams Emerald, Duration, and Benjamin Moore Aura.
Wondering what your project will cost before you call? Our exterior painting cost guide breaks down real Jacksonville pricing by home size and surface type with no guessing and no surprises.
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A New Leaf Painting has been protecting and transforming Jacksonville homes since 2001. Whether your project requires exterior painting, interior painting, stucco repair, cabinet refinishing, or epoxy floor coatings — our team handles it all under one roof using premium Sherwin-Williams® and Benjamin Moore® products. Our exterior painting cost guide, interior painting cost guide, and concrete coating cost guide break down real Jacksonville pricing so there are no surprises.
