True Colors

Here are our new colors!

After much deliberation, we (mostly Kathy) picked the final colors for our house. There are four: white, white, blue, and red.

If you've ever tried to pick out paint colors, you know how hard it can be. We tried all kinds of tricks: crayons, colored pencils, Photoshop, and finally the Kelly-Moore paint schemer. We tried photocopying a black/white picture of the house and coloring it, we looked at other houses, we checked out library books on Victorian décor and/or house painting (our local library has a surprisingly complete collection of both), and just plain ol' asking people.

Overwhelmingly, people seemed to want the house to stay white. A lot of them huffed and said, "it's always been white" which isn't true. Real 1880s-era Victorian people almost never painted houses white. Partly that's because it just wasn't the fashion, but also because white paint was difficult and expensive to make. (Ironic note on that in a moment.)

Victorian houses of the period were typically painted in dark earth tones, often with reds, browns, and beiges. Kind of boring, actually. The "painted ladies" of San Francisco fame are artificial; actual Victorians were never that garish.

We have a period photo of the house with Doctor Hart himself standing near the front door, and the house color is quite dark. In fact, it looks unpainted, like natural wood. Our paint-scraping crew just confirmed this: the shingles were originally oiled, not painted, which protected them from the elements but also made them a %!#@$ to strip.

So we know the house wasn't "always white," despite the protestations of our neighbors. It may have been white in their lifetime, but certainly not the lifetime of the house. The baker across the street says he knows the previous housepainter, who told him that the owner at the time wanted the house one solid color, as though dipped in white paint, but that he (the painter) talked him into the two-tone white-on-white scheme it has today. The two white colors are pretty similar; most people don't notice it. I couldn't even tell it was two colors until we'd lived here for a few weeks.

We wanted something a little bolder but without being garish. We weren't trying for a painted lady; just a bit of trim color to highlight all the "gingerbread" trim that's almost invisible now. After a lot of experiments and false starts, we finally settled on a combination of four colors.

With help from my sister, we Photoshop'd various color combinations, most of which we didn't like (not her fault). It's one thing to say, "I like green and blue and gold," and another to actually see those colors on the house. Our first (and second, and third...) impulses were all false starts, but at least we eliminated some options. Eventually we talked to Kelly Moore Paints, which offers a free Photoshop-like service using their own special software and paint colors. We told them what colors we were thinking of, and they scurried off and prepared eight alternative color schemes for us.

They were all terrible. "Unattractive" would be generous. They must farm the work out to colorblind felons on a work-release program or something. Their options were all bright, solid colors, like this Orange Julius stand on the left.

Fortunately, when they gave us back the eight renderings, they also gave us the software. That allowed us to experiment further and try some more reasonable options. Eventually we came up with the color scheme shown below. It's not exactly what we're planning, but it's as close as the software allows.

The base ("field") color is called Wedding Dress, which is serendipitous, as our daughter just got married. And no, we didn't choose it for that reason. (Kathy will tell you that I avoid reading the silly color names because I don't want them swaying my opinion.) The slightly tan off-white color will go on some of the larger trim areas, the blue goes on the scrollwork details, and the red will be used sparingly on some of the smaller details -- plus the front door.

But before we can paint, the scraping and sanding have to be finished, and it looks like we're still a few days away from that. The crew is outside from 8:00 AM every morning, with dust masks on, removing all the old white paint, which is probably lead-based. Ironically, Jon Stuefloten started his painting apprenticeship by mixing lead paint for his boss. Every morning, he said, he unwrapped a big brick of lead, scraped off shavings into a bucket using his penknife, added turpentine, and mixed it all together. His boss would then mix in the tints, judging the color by eye until it looked right. Now, 50+ years later, Jon's crew is painstakingly removing that same kind of lead paint.