Colors of 18th-Century Colonial Homes

Exterior Colors

• In the 18th century, colonial homes that were not brick most often were painted white. Dark colors such as black, crimson or blue were reserved for the home's trim, shutters and doors. Earth tones such as grays, buffs and tans also were common.

Interiors

• Homes in the 18th century were much more extravagant in their use of color inside. Mount Vernon, George Washington's home near Alexandria, Va., for example, had bright green walls and others painted blood-red crimson, cobalt and Prussian blue. In other homes, woodwork, doors and trim would be painted with deep, vibrant tones when more luxurious treatments were too expensive. This meant that the color of the walls often were painted in cheaper earth tones or simple whitewash. Blues were expensive to produce, so the hues, when seen, often indicated the wealth and status of people living in a home.

Paints

• In the 18th century, latex paints did not exist. House paints were composed of three materials: a pigment, a binder and a vehicle. Pigment can help paint from deteriorating and also gives it its color. The pigment most often used during the 18th century was white lead, which not only protected surfaces from ultraviolet light but also helped prevent the growth of mold and mildew. Most tinting pigments for house paints were derived from the earth: ochres, siennas and umbers made from iron-oxide clays. Synthetic pigments included Prussian blue and mercuric sulfide (crimson) and copper compounds (greens). The most common binder for house paints was oil, usually linseed oil, which still is used today. The vehicle -- or the liquid of the paint -- typically was turpentine in oil paints and water for water-based paints, such as whitewash and calcimine. Calcimine usually is used on interior plaster.

No Formulas

• Unlike today, when you can go to a hardware store and buy one gallon after another of any color paint, there were no set formulas for paints during the 18th century. The type and proportions of materials in each paint were determined by the painter who made it. Generally, the pigments were coarsely ground and mixed into the binder by hand according to formulas owned by the painter. This means that variations occurred between one bucket of paint and the next. By the mid-18th century, factory-made paints were starting to become available. They also were more consistent in color, viscosity and composition.

Original Colonial?

• Original colonial homes will have dozens of layers of paint on them. Exactly which colors were used at which times can be determined by cutting out a section of paint layer down to the home's plaster or wood and having it microscopically and chemically analyzed.