The first buckets of color

Over 4^th of July weekend, I made a trip back to my beloved Detroit for paint. Well, technically, I was really there for my family, but paint was part of the weekend.

About an hour from my parents’ house is a town called Jackson. Jackson is home to the closest Seven Paints store by far and Seven Paints is pretty much the only place that carries California Paints. For comparison purposes, the closest one to Isthmus House is 144 miles away in Oswego, Illinois.

My mother and I took a field trip over to the store and spent about an hour and a half choosing nearly all of the colors for the first floor of the house. This is particularly challenging because every room will be visible from every other room when I reopen the foyer to the kitchen. That means all of the colors have to transition nicely but also define the spaces.

We definitely got enough paint to give me something to do for a while!

The foyer is going to be in the beautiful soft Sleeper’s Entry with a Mid-Century White ceiling (along with all of the ceilings in the house). We’re going to be reopening the vaulted ceiling in the foyer since it’s poorly drywalled and paneled over. Really, who does that?

From there, I’ll transition into the living room once it’s drywalled over in a pretty Clamshell grey with Ivory Cottage in the porch. The buttery Ivory Cottage will need go directly over the paneling once it’s sanded – don’t worry, there will be pictures for the whole thing!

The dining room will be a soft sage color called Sea Oats before we reach the kitchen in a beautiful Garden Terrace.

So, when we’re done, the transition between the rooms will look like this (a little lighter and brighter maybe, depending on your computer’s graphic properties):

With all Relative White trim, the house should go back to looking clean and pretty with just a few hundred dollars and some time. Photos to follow as we finish room by room!

Update: These plans changed dramatically when I opened a can and was all ready to paint and it was way off from the desired colors a while later. I can't say whether or not that's typical but we made some last minute changes at Isthmus House!

A spoonful of color... or a bucket works, too

Today is a day to think about paint. Not that the Isthmus House is quite ready for it, but it’s still nice to think about and it’s good to plan ahead (see yesterday’s post about paneled showers for more on planning).

I was home sick today and spent a fair amount of time taking in the wall colors around me. Currently, the Isthmus House has a dark navy color in the downstairs living room, The Roommate’s terra cotta bedroom, a very taupe downstairs kitchen and that’s about it.

The Isthmus House is being restored, which means that historically correct colors circa 1910 are a must. What’s the point in hunting down 100 year old doors or patching in hardwood floors if I’m not going to bother getting the paint right?

There’s a sad misconception in pop culture that colors weren’t prevalent in older homes until the “painted ladies” of the late Victorian era. Only in that last several years have “paint historians” (no, not kidding) looked more at the makeup of old paints to determine what colors used to be instead of the faded, broken down versions that were being referenced in paint chips.

This mini-history lesson brings me to my point. While it may be true that the Victorians didn’t even like pink, they didn’t live with only grey and taupe either. I’m sad that so many paint companies (including Valspar and Benjamin Moore, in my opinion) only have muted, sad colors in their “historical paint” collections as a remaining side-effect of early (1920s Williamsburg, for example) archaeological paint efforts.

So, I’ve decided that I’m going with California Paints. They’ve done the research and have collaborated with Historic New England to come up with Historic Colors of America and 20^th Century Colors of America, a line running from deep reds to bright blues to rich purples and lots of colors in between. Truth be told, I’m probably choosing them in large part because they have the colors I want to paint the Isthmus House too.

Now, who wants to help me pick the colors?! I’m loving the Garden Terrace, Seascape Jade and Concord Bloom line under the Arts and Crafts category of the 20th Century Colors (link above). Looks like the Isthmus House is about to get a little more color in it! Tell me which colors you like best!