Front Page Forum: Brownstone Trim Color
Over the weekend, the owner of this brownstone in the Capital Hill nabe of Washington D.C. posted on the Forum, looking for some input on what color to paint his window trim. Since we’re partially color-blind, we won’t weigh in too much on this one, except to say that we think white should be avoided…
Over the weekend, the owner of this brownstone in the Capital Hill nabe of Washington D.C. posted on the Forum, looking for some input on what color to paint his window trim. Since we’re partially color-blind, we won’t weigh in too much on this one, except to say that we think white should be avoided at all costs on brownstones and even many brick houses (unless it’s clearly a Georgian thing). We’re probably overly biased against white windows since it’s the predominant color of the vinyl windows that mar otherwise beautiful facades in many of the less expensive parts of Brownstone Brooklyn. We went with black, which is pretty much the default color. There were a couple of commenters on the Forum banging the table for dark, dark green. Where do you stand on the issue?
Help Selecting Trim Color for Brownstone [Forum]
I like the red that is there now. Maybe something in that palette.
A good book for period finish colors is Roger Moss’ “Paint in America”. It will tell you the palettes for different period buildings, if you want to do something historically appropriate but not exactly what the original owners did.
Here it is at Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/yoovv5
Frankly I’m a little envious of brick-fronted house owners coz there seems to be more flexibility there. I very much like the putty/khaki/grey-green colors I’ve seen in Brooklyn Heights and the West Village. Even that “Dutch Blue” you sometimes see.
I agree that the more you know about the history of your home, the more connected you feel. But just for the fun of going with guts, mustard trim could look quite sharp, and though unorthadox, charcoal gray trim with a bright blue (cobalt or robin’s egg) door. Or deeep neutral brown trim with a glossy red or green door.
Serge is spot on, as is Halden who goes one step further. I’ll go further still and encourage anybody in this situation to do the research and not just go with a gut feeling and/or generalities about the period. It’s not that much more work or money and you’ll feel great about the results everytime you see them.
Serge has it laid out pretty well – generally earth tones on this period building. Sometimes the brick molds and frames were painted to match the surrounding stone; likewise the cornices. (It looks as though the stone sills on this building are painted, which is a no-no.)
For a few hundred dollars, you can get a finishes investigation done – they’ll come out and take samples and look at ’em under a microscope to determine the original and later finishes.
Victorians were allergic to white. The trim colors of the “Brown Decades” were browns, maroons, moss greens, and mustards. They weren’t crazy about black either.
During the Great Depression, all trimwork everywhere it seems, was painted black and so black trim came to be asoociated with the traditional thing to do. And it is, dating back to the 1930’s. To further confuse matters, some high-end houses had window sash made of hardwood. In those cases the frames would be painted maroon or brown and the sash would be varnished. The Dakota apartment building has this treatment.
I prefer a deep earth color to black. The window trim color was often picked up in the cornice, although originally the cornice was often painted a sandstone brown to give the illusion of being made of stone. It’s a tricky business,
scrapings and paint anlysis on surviving areas of trim is a very interesting exercise -even if you end up rejecting the original color, it’s nice to know what it was.
Black all the way.
Very nice looking house. I’d vote for something in the deep red/burgundy range–similar to the red that’s already there except a bit ‘deeper’ or closer to burgundy. A dark dark green might also be nice. I’d agree with the advice to steer clear of white. I’d love to see a photo of the finished product.