Guide ToOld-HouseJournal . .

Exterior Paint Colorsfor the pre-1930 house

WHAT IS THE "RIGHT COLOR" for your oldhouse? First, it has to be a color thatyou can live with happily. This guide

will help you make a satisfying selection froma range of colors that are all historicallyappropriate to your house. Most old houseswere painted--subtly or elaborately-- in multi-colored schemes, and so you'll find that theproper placement of the colors is as importantas the choice of the colors themselves. Witha feeling for the appropriate combination, youcan bring your house's true character back tolife with all its detail and individuality.

PRE-1800 HOUSES were painted whatever colorswere available. From early colonial days,white lead was used to make white paint onsite. People who either couldn't afford ordidn't have access to white lead would usenatural pigments however they could. For exam-ple, rust would be used to make "Spanish brown"or "Indian red." Failing this, they wouldsimply leave their clapboards to weather.

HOUSE COLORS CHANGED DRAMATICALLY between 1820and 1920. At first, popular colors were pale.By the late 19th century, dark colors werepreferred, but with the turn of the century,pale colors made a comeback. All these devel-opments were made in accordance with predict-able changes in taste, but they also reflectedchanges in house styles.

BETWEEN 1800 AND 1840, houses were paintedmostly in whites and creams, with green shut-ters. Thomas Jefferson fostered the classicalrevival styles, thinking they were best suitedto the democratic ideals of the young Americanrepublic. After 1840, Andrew Jackson Downinghelped start a fashion for romantic Gothic andItalian style cottages. These were betterpainted in soft stone and field colors than inthe austere colors of the classical revival.

THE 1860'S AND 1870'S introduced more imposingformal styles such as Second Empire, Renais-sance Revival, and Italianate. These werelarge houses, well suited to play a role in anexpanding city. They were sometimes paintedin pale colors to suggest the formality ofstone palaces, but more often they were paintedin dark greens and reds, suggestive of themasonry and brick buildings they emulated.

IN GENERAL, colors became darker and more vividas the 19th century progressed. And housepainters got more adventurous in the number ofhues they'd combine on a single home. By the1890's, the Queen Anne and Stick Style houseswere bouquets of color. Multi-colored paintjobs heightened the effect of all those balus-ters, shingles, porches, and towers. Among themost common colors were the dark browns,olives, oranges and reds made popular by theRookwood Art Pottery in Cincinnati. With thegrowing popularity of Art Nouveau at the turnof the century, paint colors began to brighten,reflecting the luminous tones of Tiffany glass.

WITH THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, there was acolonial revival that brought back plain whiteand creams. Unfortunately, this taste wascarried to excess, and the many-colored, lateVictorian Queen Anne houses were masked inwhite--as were houses of every other earlierstyle. The movement from pale to dark andback to pale had gone full circle and con-cluded in many areas, regrettably, in a herdof white elephants.

IN SELECTING COLORS, you should take your cuefrom your house's style, not its age. Forexample, if you have a Greek Revival built

in the 1880's, well after that style was atits peak, you should paint it in the colorsappropriate to a Greek Revival, rather than inthe colors of its Stick-style contemporaries.

YOU SHOULD STUDY the details of your house--its shape, mass, type of roof, windows, trim,porches--to determine which style it mostclearly resembles. Then you can choose yourcolors accordingly. Most houses are not trueexamples of any one style. Frequently, theyare transitional and combine details or charac-teristics of more than one style.

THE ODDS ARE that you won't find a house thatlooks exactly like yours in the guide on thefollowing pages. But you should spot a style--or combination of styles — that approximates it.And with that, you can get an idea of thecolor ranges that are most suitable. J2.

.Illustrated by Charles Eanet.Queen Anne house adapted from "Gift to the Street."

Reprinted from the April 1981 issue of The Old-House Journal, 69A Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217.

Saltbox1600's-Present

Early saltboxes were usually left unpainted. Wood weathered toa brown-gray color; today, stain would be appropriate. Evenafter the introduction of paint, colors were limited. White leadwas the pigment for white paint, while other natural pigmentswere used to make dark brown and red.

Body Trim

WhiteSpanish brownIndian redOchre

Same

Georgian ITOO-ISOOThe classic formal Georgian house would most often have beenpainted white, with green or black shutters. Earlier, less formalhouses of this style were sometimes painted in the darker, colon-ial colors.

Body Trim

ny o a ovc

Door

. .

Red

Federal Rowhouses1735-1835 Classic Farmhouse

1800-Present

These urban houses were often painted in light, severe colorswith white or cream trim. Doors were dark: Black or naturaldark wood. Shutters were dark red, green or brown.

These houses were built throughout the 19th century, and werepainted whatever colors were popular at the time. Many werepainted white, sometimes with red roofs. Often these houseswere painted plainly all in one color, with only the doors coloreddark brown or red for contrast.

Body

White

Trim

WhiteC.ream

n> o ovc

Door

BlackNatural

r \ £reen

Greek Revival1820-1865

Suitably "classical" colors were white or pale yellow, accentedwith white or cream trim. Pale gray, blue, green, and yellow arealso considered appropriate.

Body Trim Door

Black

•eenn blue

above

Gothic Revival/Carpenter Gothic 1840-1860

Gothic Revival mansions and Carpenter Gothic Cottages alikewere most often painted in light browns and pinks. Trim wasdone in the same or similar colors, or painted dark brown. Doorsand shutters were dark.

Body•

M*A' hie lum ue

Trim Door

ar < green

Vernacular Italianate1840-1880

Second Empire/Mansard1860-1880

These were painted in warm, light colors with contrasting trim,and dark doors. Trim was often the same color, but in a differ-ent shade—lighter or darker. Colors range from cream to brown,gray to green.

Details were picked out in dark greens, reds and browns. Earlierhouses continued to be painted in Italianate colors that resem-bled stone. Trim was generally lighter, with doors and shutters insubtle contrast to the trim.

Body

W b

i • u*

Trim.

i :«u+ „..,.,e lum gray

Door

y o ove

Body

Dark red

Beige

Trim

Yellow

Door

Naturaln^rk brown

Stick Style1860-1885

Body and trim were painted contrasting dark colors (red, grayand brown) to heighten the decorative trim. Doors were oftenoak or another unpainted hardwood.

Body Trim Door

un pa in tea wood

u

Stick-Eastlake1870-1900

Bold, colorful contrasting color schemes—reds, greens, yellowswith maroons and blues—earned these West Coast houses thename "painted ladies," even as far back as 1885.

Base Body Trim Sash Door Cornice

Pompeiian red - Olive — Bronze — Indian red — Oak — Terra cottaIndian red Maroon - Seal Yellow M uGranite White Bronze n — Sky blue

Colonial Revival1880-Present

These went back to pale colors: Mostly white or cream, some-times pale yellow, with white or cream trim. The differencefrom earlier, true colonial styles is the large size of the house andthe frequent presence of a big front porch.

Craftsman Bungalow1900-1930

These bungalows, like other turn-of-century styles—Tudor, Shin-gle were unpainted. The natural materials used, stone andwood, were untreated except for an occasional stain to darkenthe wood. Stucco, too, was left a natural color.

Body

White

TanMedium gray

Trim

ii

Door

Oak

18Z5-1915

Fish scale shinglespainted shingles colo

Carved panelpainted trim color

Small panes in windowssometimes in colored glasswhich can guide color choice

Horizontal bandpainted trim color

Leaded glass transom canprovide guide to color choice

Clapboards paintedbody color

Peak ornamentpainted trim color

Turned and carved decorationpainted trim color

Gable ornamentpainted trim color

Dentilspainted trim color

Balconypainted trim color

Horizontal bandspainted trim color withraised panels in shingle color

Brackets painted trim color

Decorative shingles paintedshingles color

Turned portico balustradepainted trim color

Classical garlands painted trim color

Carved panels paintedtrim color

Columns painted trim color

OF ALL THE REVIVAL STYLES in the 19thcentury, Queen Anne had the most varietyof detail and texture. Coincidentally,at the same time that the Queen Annestyle was most popular, the darkest,most vivid colors were also popular.As a result, Queen Anne houses werepainted several dark colors, to high-light all the detail.

THERE WERE ELEMENTS of the Queen Annestyle that were part of the early stagesof the Colonial Revival which was in itsheyday about twenty years afterwards.The Colonial Revival did not merely con-sist of Georgian Revival style houses.It was a general harkening back toearly styles, including Queen Anne, eventhough most of the early styles evokedwere American, not British.

THE QUEEN ANNE STYLE was fashionable ata time when a lot of building was taking

QUEEN ANNECOLORSCHEMES

place in the United States. Perhaps themost important thing to remember when paint-ing a Queen Anne house is that the manyarchitectural details outlined above werepicked out and celebrated with color.