Color Wars...

We've got to pick colors for the old house. Color choice decisions do not come easily for me (I know there are those of you out there that feel my pain on this one). I've been reminded that I cannot take 2 (more!) years to decide like I did with the dining room (the color of which may have taken 2+ years to choose but is spectacular!). Although now that we have a better understanding of the tedius job of scraping, I actually may have 2 years to decide!

So how to decide? Should we change the color? Or keep it the same? It is important to me that we hold true to the historic colors for the architectural era of the house. The previous owner informed me the original color scheme was green shake over white clapboard with black sash. I'm not convinced I want those colors so off to the library where due to my frequent visits, I'm on a first name basis with the librarian. And then to the paint store to gather "chips" of potential color choices.

So endless hours spent staring at chips, reading about Victorian color schemes, and staring at more chips has led to the following decisions: 1) keep a Victorian 3-4 color scheme, 2) since soffets/gutters are aluminum and currently white, white will remain on the trim, 3) we will likely go with some shades of tan, green or brown. Who knew there were so many shades of tan, green, & brown?


Samples! We need samples! That will help us decide. So off to the Porter store (twice) to collect samples. Colors with names like "Walnut Grove", "Stony Creek", "Prairie Dust", "Earthy Ocher", "Pine Cone", "Woodbridge", "Olivewood", "Afternoon Tea", "Seal Skin" etc. Other than "Seal Skin" I want to live in a place with names like that, don't you?

The side of the garage has become our "color test zone".
"Walnut Grove over Earthy Ocher" "Afternoon Tea over Stony Creek", "Olivewood over Prairie Dust", "Pine Cone over Stony Creek" etc, etc, etc. The combinations seem endless and are mindnumbing.

So 8 color samples later, here is our decision: we haven't made one. We're just standing here staring at the side of the garage hoping it will come to us....