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But even these warmer toned greige paint colors will feel fresh without overpowering your space. Greige is also great if you’re not ready to go all-in with color in your historic home, but still want to highlight trim, woodwork or antiques. We like greige in bedrooms and living rooms, and it always looks beautiful on a historic home’s exterior, especially if you highlight trim in another color. Bright yellows with mustard undertones are experiencing a resurgence and also work well as a paint color in historic homes. They tend to pair best with white trim or white painted woodwork or wainscoting. Darker wood can make even the perfect yellow look old and dated, but the right yellow-and-white combo looks timeless.
Choosing just one or two colors for your whole house can seem like a daunting decision. After all, whether you’re DIYing or hiring out, a lot of time and effort will have to be put into the task of painting. Continuity is important on the ground floor, but color can help “zone” a big open space, separating the dining area from the TV room, for instance.
Best Paint Colors for Historic Homes
As you prepare to sell your home, we want to make choosing the best paint easier for you, so we selected colors that you should consider. These colors are from HomeLight’s Top Agent Insights Reports and other reputable sources. This 1923 Craftsman bungalow has a fresh coat of greenish-gray earth toned paint that honors the original aesthetics of the home. And they seek an environment for life's next stage that exudes personality and vibrancy.
These are favored by designers looking to showcase artwork or furnishings and are often used on ceilings to create a neutral field overhead. Once you have your colors in hand, consider the finish you’ll be using. Though today’s flat paints have increased stain resistance, conventional wisdom has long held that a satin finish is best for walls because it is scrubbable and doesn’t draw attention to imperfections. Semi-gloss and high-gloss finishes, it was thought, were best left to the trim, where they could accent the curves of a molding profile or the panels of a door. The next step is to choose one of the three paint colors as your wall color and to save the other two to be used around the room in fabric or furnishings. While white and off-white continue to be the best color to paint your home’s interior and exterior, adding a splash of the increasingly popular greens may help you seal the deal.
Decide on the Finish to Create an Appealing Visual Effect
Another option for exterior paint build up is to have all the old paint stripped down to bare wood, primed and painted so all surfaces look nearly new and relatively smooth. This is a very time consuming, labor intensive and expensive process so your budget will drive the decision process. Look at areas that look like they have water damage or other types of damage. Both interior and exterior areas that are damaged will need to be fully repaired before painting. Old homes are often full of surprises when this step is taken so be prepared. A reputable painting company will make sure that all repairs are fully completed before painting.
Yellow also looks great in a variety of historic homes, including Victorian, Craftsman or a Midcentury ranch. While many of the best colors to pair with medium to dark wood trim are whites or neutrals, that doesn't mean you can't add in a color, too. Benjamin Moore's Iceberg ( ) is a crisp light blue that adds a punch of color to your living space or hallways without darkening the space. This is another color that works beautifully with white should you ever want to lighten your trim. You can also increase your trim selection if you intend to paint the bricks. For modest ranches, graphite-gray bricks, dark-colored shutters, and off-white trim are common exterior paint color schemes.
Historically Accurate Paint Colors for Your Older Home
Call us biased, but we think old homes deserve a little respect when it comes to choosing paint colors for both the interiors and exterior. This is not to say that you must stick with that avocado green in your vintage bathroom. But we do think that older homes retain more of their character and charm when colors in keeping with the home’s era are used. So Maycock dug up other resources, showing the couple paint-company brochures from the 1880s and 1890s with color illustrations of period houses. "The colors that were popular then were deep and rich—lots of golds, russets, and olives," says Maycock.
The color of your home will vary according to the time of day and the quality of the light. A soft shade of pistachio green on this Litchfield County, CT home from Crisp Architects has a taupe-y appearance as night falls that sets it apart from the dark greens of the surrounding landscape. Jessie Tobias Design painted this waterfront house in a deep blue shade that echoes the lake and is carried through to the deck chairs on the weathered wood dock. Red paint colors can have an earthy feel and represent strength, power and energy. Colors borrowed from nature make sense for showing off unpainted wood.
Sandra Foster used flat white paint on her tiny Victorian cottage in the Catskills of New York to highlight its fairy tale charm, while a green-colored roof blends in with the woodsy surroundings. Martha O'Hara Interiors used clean off-white paint to give this modern farmhouse-style new build a classic feel. Colors characteristic of the Greek Revival (1825–1860) style are similar, and include stone grey, straw, cream, and off-white.
Shutters first started to be used during this period, and they, along with windows and doors, should generally be painted green or black. Though many Colonial colors are low-key, saturated shades are also part of the palette. A trim color that’s darker than the walls is visually interesting and historically accurate. If your walls have never been anything but white, expand your comfort zone with a subtle tint like the barely-there blue in this space. “With darker trim in the same color, it’s a monochromatic scheme that’s easy to live with,” says Benjamin Moore color and design expert Andrea Magno. Here are the 10 best paint colors that go well with natural wood trim.
Wanting to get a better sense of what it would look like in real life, Sally had the colors applied to a digital picture of her house, using photo-editing software. Choosing them for a 125-year-old home that's smack-dab in the middle of a community obsessed with historically accurate color schemes can be downright intimidating. If you’re sticking with classic white trim, then you’ll want one shade of white for all the trim work, doors, moldings and casings in your home. For subtle emphasis, Sheri Thompson, director of color marketing and design for Sherwin-Williams, suggests painting molding or doorways just one step lighter or darker than the primary wall. “It’s a subtle shift in color but it really brings your eye to the detail,” she says.
Below we have compiled a list of different colors that you can choose for making your historic house look lively once again. In general, you should use neutral colors, contrast, and the contrast between light and dark when you match your walls to your flooring. If you want to sell your home, realtors advise that you stick to crowd-pleasing colors such as white, beige, gray, and earthy, natural tones. This contemporary Denver, CO home from Fantastic Frank is softened with a coat of off-white paint with beige undertones that complement the eco-friendly landscaping. Deep reddish-brown stained siding with contrasting medium-toned blue-green trim make the facade of this home stand out from the leafy green surrounding landscape.
Trim detailing was often painted a stony color and could even be dusted with sand as paint dried to appear as stone. We love Benjamin Moore's Vapor Trails because it's a cool grayish-green paint that looks almost white in rooms where natural light is abundant. When painted next to natural wood trim, the soft green undertones shine through. It's a perfect choice for a bedroom or an office that could use a little pop of color that isn't overwhelming. Here are some wide ranging exterior paint color ideas on a variety of houses in a range of styles and settings that will give you some inspiration for choosing a paint color for your home. You can still go with a greige that has warm undertones if you’re worried you’ll be out of keeping with your home’s original decade.
You can also consult with your town or city’s historical society, who might have ideas or references for you. While many homeowners want to move into newer “turn key” homes, still others love the charm of older, historic homes. Historic homes often have architectural details, woodwork and features newer homes don’t.
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