Tired Whitewash: Before
“Please please please help with the color!” says Jennifer Martens, who lives in her great-grandparents’ whitewashed 1914 home, in Pipestone, Minnesota, with her husband, children, and 98-year-old grandmother. We turned to colorist Robert Schweitzer for suggestions.
Grand Color: After
“This house was probably first painted white during the Depression, when that was the cheapest option—and putting multiple colors on your home was like showing off,” Schweitzer says. No longer. The updated palette with a currant-red body, contrasting dusky blue in the gable, and gray trim, helps the house’s handsome details stand out. Sage-green and goldenrod palettes were inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, when houses were meant to blend into the natural landscape.
“This is beyond!” Jennifer says. “I wish my grandfather was alive to see his childhood home looking as grand as the day it was built.”
Opulent Palette: Berry Red
We dressed up this grande dame in three eye-catching schemes.
Opulent Palette: Brick Dust Body
“A warm-red body color is very opulent,” Schweitzer says.
Paint: Olympic’s Brick Dust
Opulent Palette: Gray-Blue Gable
At the time the home was built, he adds, the large gable on top would typically be painted in a contrasting color.
Paint: Olympic’s All American
Opulent Palette: Thin Ice Trim
The trim would be a color other than white. Paint: Olympic’s Thin Ice
Opulent Palette: Misty Surf Ends and Trim
Gray-blue gable ends and pale-gray trim update the period formula.
Paint: Olympic’s Misty Surf
Earthy Palette: Sage Green
An earthy pale-sage body color with creamy yellow trim makes for a cheery exterior.
Earthy Palette: Rookwood Jade Body
Paint: Sherwin-Williams’s Rookwood Jade
Rookwood Dark Green Gable Ends
Forest-green gable ends add drama. Paint: Sherwin-Williams’s Rookwood Dark Green
Earthy Palette: Birdseye Maple Trim
Paint: Sherwin-Williams’s Birdseye Maple
Earthy Palette: Rookwood Red Windows
Brick-red windows add drama. “Dark-red window sashes were common in the early 20th century, due to the excessive amounts of dust and dirt caused by car traffic,” Schweitzer says.
Paint: Sherwin-Williams’s Rookwood Red
Period Palette: Rich Gold
The most historic palette
Period Palette: Spun Gold Body
Olive-green trim, faded red in the gable ends, and red windows flatter a deep-gold body color.
Paint: Pratt and Lambert’s Spun Gold
Period Palette: Rose Bisque Gable
Faded red in the gable ends flatter a deep-gold body color.
Paint: Pratt and Lambert’s Rose Bisque
Period Palette: Light Olive Trim
Olive-green trim flatters a deep-gold body color.
Paint: Pratt and Lambert’s Light Olive
Period Palette: Bryce Canyon Red Door
The oak door is varnished, as it would have been when Jennifer’s great-grandparents moved in.
Paint: Pratt and Lambert’s Bryce Canyon