Exterior paint schemes

[biffvernon]

Here are some pretty colours from the 18th and 19th century houses of Ulverston, Cumbria, where for some reason the locals seem to want to brighten up their lives. I didn't do a lot of searching, just walked round the town centre. Most houses are painted, walls and windows, and the only rule seems to be 'Don't use the same colours as next door'.

I rather like the effect.

 

[JanieB]

Lovely .

From a Westmorland (now Cumbrian) born.

 

[piper]

Lovely .

From a Westmorland (now Cumbrian) born.

Ulverston, of course, though now officially in Cumbria, was always - and for some people still is - very much a LANCASHIRE town. It was in the often forgotten corner of Lancashire "over sands", and so was much of the west bank of Windermere. The Three Shire Stone at the top of Wrynose Pass marks the place where Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland met.
I believe that bright colours are very much a Lancashire tradition - its visible in quite a few areas around there, as well as in towns further south in the county. (Also in South Wales mining villages I think?) Westmorland, by contrast, goes more for black and white paintwork, or at least more sober colours.

 

[Cloudscape]

I really enjoy seeing colour working well on houses. The place where I have seen the most playful sense of colour, is Bishop's Castle in Shropshire (well worth a detour if you're nearby). The houses are a mix over the last few centuries, and while you'll find mainly white and plain-wood windows, the exterior wall paint can be any colour. I was told the locals frown on the use of white. So - in between more conventional colour schemes - you have cream, strong yellow, strong blue, rich red, deep slate grey, right through all the stone, mustard and brown range.

One big surprise is this house. You'll either love it or really really hate it. :lol: Up close, the paint is immaculately applied, and the circles are perfect and crisp.

 

[biffvernon]

I love it.

Sometimes where a window has been bricked up, or where, for architectural reasons a false 'window' was created in the brickwork, black paint with white lines has been applied to create the effect of a window. It can be quite convincing to a casual glance. In Knaresborough, Yorkshire, they have gone a step further, painting the most wonderful, often comic, scenes in such spaces. I haven't any photos though.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I love it.

Sometimes where a window has been bricked up, or where, for architectural reasons a false 'window' was created in the brickwork, black paint with white lines has been applied to create the effect of a window. It can be quite convincing to a casual glance. In Knaresborough, Yorkshire, they have gone a step further, painting the most wonderful, often comic, scenes in such spaces. I haven't any photos though.

Ditto at Pakenham in Suffolk, by Rex Whistler - towards the bottom of this page:
http://www.pakenham-village.co.uk/History/PV2Mbk/s7_C4ChurchHill.htm

and I can never resist a plug for Portmeirion:
http://www.virtualportmeirion.com/arttour/trompe.htm

 

[MdB]

So what do people think of Banksy?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

So what do people think of Banksy?

we had a thread about this in May (Search in the archive for Brazilians and Scotish - with just the one "t"), and as I said then, sometimes, I think he's brilliant:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4563751.stm

 

[alice]

Love all the pictures. Paint is one area where we can have fun and yet is easily undone.

There are suburbs in the States where the paint colors are restricted to a committee designated palette. Sometimes it's to create continuity in a preservation district; sometimes it's simply to mandate "good taste" on the ignorant masses. While the occasional fuschia house is jarring, I'd rather live with that next door than to have boring, bland, homogenized neighborhood.

alice

 

[biffvernon]

There are suburbs in the States where the paint colors are restricted to a committee designated palette

That'll be The Land of the Free then?
:wink:

 

[Carol]

"Don't use the same colours as next door" is great advice. What can you do when your multi-coloured neighbours have all changed their various shades to not-quite-match yours, so now we are all similar shades of cream? As we are all listed and quite different, and ours is in need of redoing I am thinking of speaking to our local CO for advice after Christmas.

 

[charlie-ia]

we were planning on a "not the same as the neighbours approach".
be carefull! we had a narrow escape. racing green & white are common by us (and so is peach & cream, or yellow & white) , so we thought mid green and cream would be nice, nobody has those colours.

course they dont, thats Connaught Daries colours. we'd have looked like the local farmers wholesale co-op! they open to 10pm every night too you know!

 

[Penners]

Just for fun...

Southwold, Suffolk

 

[biffvernon]

This is our one:

 

[biffvernon]

my big shiny new book on Windows[/url]"]Perhaps the biggest shift in the range of colours was seen in the first half of the 20th century. The proliferation of new paint materials and shops selling to the general public meant that DIY decoration was, for the first time, a common pastime. In addition, the housing boom of the 1920s and 1930s allowed more people to own their own homes than ever before. A great deal of pride was taken in the presentation of the home, resulting in hard work by the owners to personalize the frontage of their property and almost certainly an element of 'keeping up with the Joneses'. The result was that the vibrant colours of the 'Jazz Age' were reflected in the paint choices of the suburbs. The casement and bay windows of these houses were often picked out in bright colours, such as green on cream or red on white.

 

[Penners]

This is our one:

Nice. Virtually at the end of the garden, I imagine!

 

[chuckey]

I like most painted builldings, in fact the only only one I did not like was on Northside, Wandsworth Common, its brickwork was sky blue with the pointing picked out in metalic silver. I wished they had painted the Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth, rather then knocking it down. the finish on a building I reckon accounts for about 95% of its emotional appeal. A careful (or exuberant?) choice of a colour scheme will totaly change the appeal of a building. I wonder, if some one painted on a building, proper looky likey wooden beams with diagonal brick in-fill, we would rate it more attractive then if it was in its natural state (white paint on pebbble dash?).
Frank

 

[Nemesis]

The Tricorn was, however, an example of brutalist architecture, and so painting it possibly wouldn't really have been the thing to do.

But the honesty in the Brutalist treatment of materials means that these buildings are often considered to be simply ugly,

http://www.open2.net/modernity/4_15.htm

They're often called 'brutalist' buildings – a derisive-sounding term that actually comes from the French for raw concrete, breton brut.

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/A/art_show/carbuncles/index.html

Better to have given it a damned good clean (as with Gateshead carpark). That's next for the wrecking ball. Poor Mr Luder.

 

[piper]

Just a reminder, in case anyone still has the old "pure white marble" image, that much of the Parthenon would have been brightly painted when new.

 

[Nemesis]

And the interior of Durham Cathedral (and many others of course).

(That's the sort of dishonesty I think Brutalists were trying to avoid...)