Selecting the most appropriate paint colors for historic buildings can be challenging, but with a little know how you can turn this potentially daunting task into a rewarding experience. Much like today, paint colors originally used for historic buildings were chosen because they were aesthetically pleasing at the time of construction. As architectural styles changed and certain colors fell out of favor, owners relied on new paint colors to keep their buildings fashionable.

A fresh coat of paint has always been an easy way to personalize or update a building without altering it structurally. A trip down the paint isle in your local home center will prove that this continues to be a popular solution. Hundreds of colors on neatly presented take home swatches invite you to freshen up your building’s appearance with relative ease. Making a color change is not necessarily a bad thing, but repeating this process every five or ten years results in layers and layers of paint buildup. Imagine how this cycle affects a 140-year-old building. (more…)