Georgian window frames and sashes were usually painted off-white, but darker colours, mainly brown, were also common at the end of that period.  Red-brown, stone colours and greens were found on doors and shopfronts, though the latter were sometimes more brightly painted to draw attention to the goods on display.  Rich, dark colours are preferable to paler ones on the front doors of listed buildings.

Painted graining is an appropriate traditional finish for both doors and shopfronts, and the pilasters of the latter were sometimes painted to resemble marble, a practice mainly restricted now to pub fronts but which could be more widely adopted.

Traditional paints were invariably based on white lead and linseed oil, tinted with pigments from a number of sources, some obtained from the ground, but most the result of developments in the manufacturing processes brought about by the Industrial Revolution.