Railing and other external colours

[Nigel Watts]

I have been doing some rather unscientific paint analysis of my external ironwork:

Under the recent dark grey and black there seems to be a rather bright green (first photo), then a paler green, then a browny red, then a kind of stone colour and finally a very murky olive green.

I am minded to do the windows and frames dark brown and the ironwork in olive green (the walls are to be as close to a bath stone colour as I can get in silicone paint). Front door, its frame and fanlight in a mid-oak, grained.

I found an excellent article here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/11352331/Palette-of-the-Past-Exterior-Painting

 

[JoceAndChris]

What a great article - particulalry fascinating to read about the early Victorian paint effects, and the use of blood or oil to imitate lichens and staining on the exterior stucco!

I love the idea of the sludgy dark olive for your railings Nigel - and please do tell me what Bath stone colour you pick as I want to do the same here. Will it be less green than your former "string" colour? (I did think that combination was very nice by the way)

You always said you thought dark brown could look like the base coat of incomplete woodgraining, so what are your thoughts on that now?

It all sounds like it will quite wonderful and very early 19th C, as is usual with your interesting projects! Do keep us updated with your pictures and progress. xx

 

[Lime]

May I point out how well those old paints have protected the ironwork?
Almost certainly some of those original paints will contain lead.
During the 19th and mid 20th century red lead was popular as a rust inhibitor because it worked.
(Unlike the red rustproofing paints available today)

As a matter of interest I still have and use an exceedingly good rust inhibiting paint called Rustodian.
(bought by me in large quantity just before it was restricted)
The paint is extremely heavy because of its very high lead content and is grey in colour.
Unfortunately I am now down to my last tin and treat it like gold dust.


I would try to remove the black and green leaving the others in place as a base paint/coat for your new paint.

 

[Moo]

Patrick Baty, who wrote that article, runs a wonderful shop well within your reach, Nigel, at 4 Park Walk SW10. If you can manage to make an appointment to see him, I'm sure he'd be delighted to have an in-depth chat about your paintwork - over lunch, perhaps? (the chap who 'took over' the initial decoration of our house knows him quite well and says he can bore for England on the subject of paints).

If you google his name you'll find all sorts of interesting stuff, for example:

http://patrickbaty.co.uk/2010/07/14/lime-plaster-and-subsequent-decoration/#comment-2571
http://patrickbaty.co.uk/paint-analysis/cross-sections/
http://patrickbaty.co.uk/paint-analysis/layering/
http://patrickbaty.co.uk/paint-analysis/layering/
http://patrickbaty.co.uk/paint-analysis/pigment-analysis/
http://patrickbaty.co.uk/paint-analysis/the-report/
and
http://patrickbaty.co.uk/2010/07/14/lime-plaster-and-subsequent-decoration/#comment-2571
and
http://patrickbaty.co.uk/2010/01/27/some-more-paint-colours-from-the-past/

and so on, and so on......


ps
His wonderful shade cards do not come cheap, but they're not the usual printed jobs - the colours you see are real paint, applied by hand. I wish I still had mine (I must have lent them to someone).

 

[Nigel Watts]

I quite like this look:

But this has the railings and windows in the same very dark colour, with a medium oak coloured door. If I did the windows dark brown, the railings olive and the door medium oak I think there would be too much going on. I am now wondering whether to do railings and windows in something like invisible green (a very very dark green) and the front door in medium oak.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I think that's really lovely, and would look less cluttered overall.

I'm not really sure how useful Photoshop is in these cases - but it's certainly interesting and fun. As well as that, if you can reduce your building to a simple line drawing by just drawing over the main lines on a good photo, then getting it enlarged at the printers, you can paint in the exact colours from your tester pots.

I think this gives a fairer idea than Photoshop, and it's what I do with my room schemes (and then change my mind a dozen times!)

 

[Feltwell]

it's what I do with my room schemes (and then change my mind a dozen times!)

Are you sure it's just a dozen? :wink:

(Says the man who spent over half an hour in the decorator's merchants last week staring at paint chips trying to decide which of 2 perfectly good linseed paints to buy, either of which would have looked just fine :roll: ).