Guide to paint in terraces

[yamin]

Only just stumbled on this, but thought looked interesting

http://www.terracedhouses.co.uk/index5-paint.html

 

[JoceAndChris]

I enjoyed that Yamin, and it goes some way to explaining why Previous Owner has painted coving bright purple and gone for green ceilings here and there- I'll be kind and put it down to him going for a Viccy look.

It must have been lovely, done right, but I bet there were just as many howlers as we see today.

I read on Beth Russell's website that William Morris wallpaper was a staggering 80p per roll, and now some us (me, at least), lust over papers at £80 per roll! I wonder how that tallies in terms of wages earned?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Only just stumbled on this, but thought looked interesting

http://www.terracedhouses.co.uk/index5-paint.html

I drive past them every day...

It must have been lovely, done right, but I bet there were just as many howlers as we see today.

I was once at a lecture by a well-known (but sadly, I've forgotten his name - not Ian Bristow) historic paint chappie, who suggested that after you've carefully scraped back in selected areas to uncover the "original" scheme, you should restore in accordance with the second set of decor, because, "Back in 1780, the client probably agreed with us today that the first colour scheme was hideous, couldn't live with it, and had it painted over within six months."

 

[JoceAndChris]

"Back in 1780, the client probably agreed with us today that the first colour scheme was hideous, couldn't live with it, and had it painted over within six months."

Heigh-ho, the arguments just go round and round then.

New versus the cherishing of old, plain and honest versus dressed up seems also a familiar conflict in the literature of the period, with pure characters aligned to minimalism and the baddies squandering their husbands' money on refurbishment. (Jane Eyre versus Rosamund Vincy) I love the scene in Gaskell's "Wives and Daughters" where Molly's new mother is trying to force a new bedroom scheme on her, complete with "a little French bed[*], and a new paper, and a pretty carpet, and a dressed up toilette table and glass[*]...", and she desperately tries to hang onto her "little white dimity bed" which her dead mother picked out for her!


[*] "a single bed, in the form of a couch, set against a wall, with draperies hanging over it, kept from the bed by poles set in the wall above each end"
[*] I was amazed to learn that the really fashionable lady felt compelled to dress her mirror with ribbons and flowers, changing the design often according to changing seasons and colours.

 

[Moo]

I, too was intrigued by the first page of that website, but was rather alarmed to see that they would replace what looks like a perfectly sound lath* ceiling with plasterboard.
Perhaps one day I'll drop in and ask some disingenuous questions....


* Spelled 'lathe' on the website

 

[Nigel Watts]

Most interesting, especially the multicoloured cornice and the bronze green for railings.

Islington Council refused to let me use bronze green for my reinstated railings, insisting instead on black, despite plenty of evidence that Regency and Victorian railings were often painted this colour (most famously the Duke of Wellington's House on Hyde Park Corner). When I repaint I might try it and see if they notice.