Traditional Colour for Windows

[MD]

Now that I have lime-washed my timber-framed house, the white windows look rather stark against the muted pink limewash. I would really like to paint them green/blue, but I gather that Consevation Officers take a dim view of this (the house is Grade 2).

Do you think I have a cats chance in hell of getting permission to alter the clour from white? I gather that grren/blue is actualy far more traditional than white anyway.

Does anyone know why Conservation Departments are so hung up about white, if it is not as traditional as we are led to believe?

Perhaps I should just go ahead and hope they don't notice .....

 

[thiambal]

I recently stripped back my old sash windows and in the past they were a dark green sash with a black frame. They are white now but I think on a future painting I am going to go for more traditional colours.

 

[Nemesis]

White is pretty traditional you know - just not modern brilliant white.

 

[biffvernon]

Paint finish is a matter of choice. Pre-17th century, windows were rarely painted and being made of oak they didn't need it. In the mid 17th century when Scandinavian softwood became more widely used, it was protected by paint made of lead carbonate and linseed oil, white but fading to cream in sulphur-laden smokey air. More colours were introduced in the late 18th century and, especially, in the early 19th century when the new chemical industries produced artificial dyes that suplanted the much more expensive natural mineral pigments. Dark colours such as 'invisible green', a chrome dye, were popular as they made the glazing bars less obvious. There was a fashionable revival of the 'Queen Anne' look in the late 19th century, with a return to white, but the 1920s and '30s saw bright colours return to popularity. Since the mid 20th century, white, now 'brilliant white' has become the predominant window colour, but now with TiO2 pigment, not poisonous like white lead. So colour-wise you can chose almost whatever colour you like and make out a case in historical precedent!

 

[Nemesis]

I looked recently at a book of old photos of Corbridge, last part of the 19th century and early years of thie 20th.

I doubt that these vernacular buildings were much influenced by fashion to any great extent! However, it was interesting to see how many windows were a light colour (b and w pics) in all probability white.

Shops were painted dark, but some still had the glazing bars in a light colour - the belief was I think that this threw light into the building - and even when shop fronts were painted in something dark, upstairs windows were frequently white. There was a sprinkling of darker shades , although what is hard to tell.

Doors were not white.

Local authorities may have adopted policies on this, to prevent, as one CO friend of mine said, people painting in all manner of unsuitable colours (that's paraphrasing what he did actually say...) but I am sure any CO will look at this on an individual basis, and take into account wider issues such as the area in which a building sits as well as age etc. Some justification, as with any changes to listed building, will probably have to be made.

In my local town as part of wider enforcement action over a listed building very badly spoilt by stupid owners they had to paint a shop front and the windows black, as they had been for many decades until new owners ripped the entire frontage off, windows, late Geo shopfront and all, and replaced with crud and pastiche.

In parts of Cumbria, red is very popular, particularly for outbuildings, sometimes with glazing bars picked out in white.

In the next village to us a very nicely repaired cottage has a dark green and white scheme for the windows, with the house walls painted white.

For many years this was the village joinery shop, so it's good that they have retained the sash windows probably made there.

 

[Ian Bond]

I've painted my windows and doors an off-white colour. I have to admit that the door looks wrong - too much white going on.

At some point all the joinery was green, and it was a lead based paint. Maybe someone got a bargain - it was used inside as well.

I note that the mill where I used to work (and where no doubt previous occupiers worked) has its joinery painted green. Hmmm. Wonder where they got the paint?....

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Now that I have lime-washed my timber-framed house, the white windows look rather stark against the muted pink limewash. I would really like to paint them green/blue, but I gather that Consevation Officers take a dim view of this (the house is Grade 2).

Do you think I have a cats chance in hell of getting permission to alter the clour from white? I gather that grren/blue is actualy far more traditional than white anyway.

Does anyone know why Conservation Departments are so hung up about white, if it is not as traditional as we are led to believe?

Perhaps I should just go ahead and hope they don't notice .....

who told you conservation departments were "hung up about white"? we certainly don't like brown stained (ugh) but whenever I suggest to a punter that they should do (almost) any colour other than brilliant white, they look at me like I've gone mad. I think I've only managed to persuade two people in the last five years that something else would look far better.

 

[Nemesis]

Although the windows are white, the doors at the watermill at Little Salkeld are decidedly pink (with touches of blue):

http://www.organicmill.co.uk


I note that the flours and other produce are now able to be purchased online.

 

[JanieB]

I stripped my original sash windows a couple of years ago. They had so many layers of paint the detail was virtually non-existent and they were so clogged up as to be difficult to open and close. The top layers were white (with black frames) , then several of cream, then a dark green. The first coat (probably sometime between 1820 to 1880) was a dark brown.

The original front door was moved inside in 1981 by a previous owner, and is now the door between the hall and the sitting room. This has also been stripped. It had at some time, been hardboarded to "modernise" it. I will be painting it again as it would never have been bare wood. It was painted black on the bottom layer. The top layer was various shades and very "hippy". Done in 1981 by someone with sixties taste :roll: .

 

[MD]

Well, in reply to Gareth Hughes, I have to eat some humble pie (never a man not to admit when I'm wrong).

I emailed the conservation officer and told him the windows were white and I wanted to paint them green. I asked if this would be possible and would I need a LBC application. I also asked if this application was likely to succeed.

When I replaced some of the windows, I was told by the CO that I must state that they would be white. So, I was fully expecting him to say that I would need a LBC application, but it would be unlikely to succeed.

Well, not only did he reply within the hour, he also stated that the colour was fine and I did not need to submit a LBC application.

My faith in CO's is restored (well almost) ....

 

[Nemesis]

Mind you, the taste police may not approve:

pink limewash. I would really like to paint them green/blue,

 

[MD]

Its the must-have colour combination.It'll look wonderful, you just need a little bit of creative imagination - so many people are afraid to use colour.

 

[Nemesis]

Pink green and blue?

I mustn't have.

I've never been accused of no creative imagination, I'm busy imagining it...

 

[skier-hughes]

We have a pink limewashed building near us, can't remember what colour the windows are, will have to check next time I'm passing.

 

[biffvernon]

The first coat (probably sometime between 1820 to 1880) was a dark brown.

This might of been the very widespread purple-brown. It's an iron oxide with a dash of manganese, Fe2O3.xMnO2, aka Spanish brown. Originally produced in Spain, it was made in the Forest of Dean from the suitable rocks in the 17th century and the name stuck. Synthetic versions developed in the 19th century and it was popular as the pigment is very stable and weatherproof.

Or it might have been wood graining, a pretence of hardwood painted on softwood, popular early in the 19th century.

 

[MD]

Nemises, Blue or green, that is what I meant by blue/green, not both. So, it would be pink and say green.

Now, there are very many shades of pink and very many shades of green. Which ever combination I choose I'm sure it will not be as offensive as your insults towards me and my taste.

if you cannot keep to constructive comments, and can only throw around personal insults then please don't comment on my posts at all.

 

[Nemesis]

Em - it was a bit of lighthearted joking.

If you can't take those then maybe you shouldn't post here?


I say Biff - you been reading your new windows book? (That's a joke too - but I think Biff knows that.)

 

[MD]

I guess some people can 'do witty', and some people can't.

 

[Nemesis]

No, clearly we don't share a sense of fun, although with that choice of colour combination I would have thought you had one.

No matter.

 

[Nemesis]

Anyhow - back to paint.


Soc of Antiquaries meeting report:

... Ian Bristow, FSA, well known to many Fellows as England’s leading expert on traditional paints, gave a paper that revealed the complexity of mid-nineteenth-century colour theory, based on George Field’s book, Chromatography (1835), which influenced the decorative schemes of buildings as diverse as the British Museum and the Crystal Palace, home of the Great Exhibition. Ian explained that the Society’s apartments at Burlington House had been decorated with water-soluble distemper, which had been lost during surface preparation for later paint schemes, but such fragments as had survived suggested that the walls were stone and lilac and the ceilings white. Because of the fragmentary nature of the evidence, the new scheme, he said, could not be an exact reconstruction, nor was it an essay in pastiche, but rather it was based on what a nineteenth-century colourist would have considered correct and appropriate, in the light of Field’s theories, but also one that provides the right ambience for the Society’s collections of paintings and furnishings.

Traditional Paint Forum:

http://www.traditionalpaintforum.org.uk/pages/4common/news.html

Amongst the publications:

REPRINTS
The Case for Traditional Paint – Peter Maitland Hood

OBITUARY
Memories of Peter Hood – Ian Pritchett


http://www.traditionalpaintforum.org.uk/pages/3contact/book.html#Vol2No2