Asphalt Shingle Roof Installation - Brown / Auburn Architectural Shingles

Brown asphalt shingles are an underrated color choice in LA. Gray and charcoal dominate the market because they read as modern and pair with everything, but a well-chosen brown blend on the right home - particularly one with brick, stone, natural wood siding, or warm-toned stucco - looks substantially better than the default gray.

This project's shingles are a brown/auburn architectural blend with a multi-tone shadow line. From the ground the color reads as a warm rich brown; from the air the dimensional shadow lines give the field depth and visual texture that flat single-color shingles never achieve.

The install: full tear-off down to deck, deck inspection (the south-facing slope had one small section of soft sheathing replaced), synthetic underlayment across the field, ice-and-water membrane through every valley and around the chimney and pipe penetrations, step-flashing reset at all wall-to-roof transitions. The shingles are Owens Corning Duration 30-year architectural in a brown blend.

Hip and ridge caps were installed with manufacturer-spec'd hip-and-ridge shingles - not field shingles cut down. The right way to cap a hip is with purpose-made cap shingles pre-folded for the bend. Installers who cut field shingles and bend them on the hip create stress cracks at the bend that will leak in 5-7 years.

Ridge venting was installed the full length of the main ridge, paired with new soffit-intake vents. Nine aerial photos document the install from tear-off through finished field.