Inspired by St. Patrick’s Day weekend, we’re highlighting six historic green paint colors for your Maison Mass!
The Backstory
I will admit it, I hate making decisions about paint colors for my house! Don’t get me wrong, I love color, its just that committing it to the walls of my home terrifies me!
My Maison Mass is a pretty standard center entrance colonial-style house built in 1989. Several years ago, I decided to have my foyer painted. Since it’s a two-story number, that meant I was choosing a color for not only my first floor hallway – but for our second floor landing as well. Too big of a job to get the color wrong!
Anyone who knows me, knows I naturally gravitate to muted shades of yellow, because they are cheery (and safe!). But the exterior of our home is yellow, and I had recently painted the connected living room and dining room in yellow, as well as one of the boy’s rooms. Too much? My husband thought so and put his foot down :).
All About Green
So, I started thinking about green as a viable option. Green is second only to blue as a favorite color. Scientifically, the human eye is more sensitive to green than any other hue – in fact we can see more shades of green than any other color. Green is ubiquitous in nature and signals spring, renewal and growth. From a psychology perspective, green relaxes and soothes and is thought to promote balance and harmony. What better characteristics to bring to a home?
After looking at about a million paint chips, I settled on a lighter shade of California’s Bristol Green shown below. I don’t have an antique home, but I do like to work with the home’s style and looking at historic colors for our area gave me inspiration. This color was the perfect amount of green with just enough gray undertones to soften it for a large space. I liked it on the chip, but fell in love with it once it was on my walls. Plus the green looks fantastic (if I do say so!) with the ivory trim (Benjamin Moore Navajo White) and the black furniture and accents already in the foyer.
Where are you using green in your house? If you are looking for some inspiration – read on to see some fantastic historic green hues for you home.
6 Historic Green Paint Colors We Love
California Paints (an Andover, MA based company!) in collaboration with Historic New England, created the Historic Colors of America collection, a palette researched and verified for authenticity. The collection includes 149 shades used from the 1600s to 1895 in the United States.
We’ve picked six historic greens we’d love to see in or on any Maison Mass:
We’d love to see Bristol Green, Green Bonnet or Venetian Glass used in a dining, formal living room, guest bath, or, as I did, in a foyer! Grasshopper, Grassy Meadow and Brookside would work well on the exterior as either the main or accent color for shutters or the front door.
For a full list of California Paint’s Historic Colors, click here. You can order sample color chips here. And for more of the history of paint colors in New England, check out Yankee Magazine’s interview with Historic New England here.
Don’t forget to share where you are using (or want to use!) green in your home!
