Owners of historical homes know that choosing paint colors is a nerve-wracking and critically important decision. Ready-mix paints have been available since the middle part of the nineteenth century and from that time home owners have had to choose their colors without really knowing how their finished home will look. After all, a two inch paint chip looks very different from a 3,000 square foot house!
In a visit to New England in the 1840s, famed novelist Charles Dickens commented, “All the buildings looked as if they had been painted that morning … Every house is the whitest of white; every shutter is the greenest of green.”
If you have an older home and want to choose colors other than green and white, here are some guidelines”
1. Light colors “advance” a home while dark colors cause it to “recede”. This means that lighter shades will make your home appear larger and closer to the street, while darker shades make your home seem smaller and further away. If you want your house to blend in and be less noticeable, therefore, a darker hue is best.
2. Light dramatically affects how colors appear to the...