Yep! After painting numerous test patches of paint on the walls, I still ended up with the wrong color.

The color is too light next to the golden dining room walls and woodwork.

My beautiful sage/silvery green has transformed into baby nursery mint green.

Even David, who has never met a color that he didn’t like, admitted,”Yeah. The color really doesn’t seem to be working. There is just something not right about it.” And that, my friends, means this color is just so very, very wrong.

Off to the paint store. Hallway color round #2.

I love these colors. They are from around 1910.

Aren’t the colors on the paint sample card above absolutely beautiful? Those colors have been, and continue to be so helpful during our restoration.

Early 1900 paint and stain color offerings from Aladdin Homes

Exterior paint color swatches from 1915

Sani-Flat paint sample card from around 1918

The body of the house is completely painted. The painters have started
on the trim and the red accent color on the windows.

The front of our house looks so different. It is amazing how paint can
transform a house.

We added lattice over the top of the open beams on the front porch.
I am going to grow vines over the top.

Side of the house.

Back. We still have a pile of trash that needs to be removed. We are
waiting to finish up the painting before putting in a lawn or landscaping.

Juan, our carpenter, retrofitting salvaged casement windows for the
upstairs bedroom. This window was originally a casement window and
it is once again.

Primed and ready! The primer is on. All the salvaged windows are in
on the top floor.

Back side.

And the green goes on…After a long struggle trying to select a house
color and changing my mind many times, it all comes down to this. So,
this is the color I picked? Wow, the painted chimney looks bright – add
that to the list. Remove tacky red paint from the chimney bricks…Check.

Simon (the one with black on his back) and Lulu. I don’t make them do
these things. They naturally pose whenever there is a camera around.

All ears.

We aren’t moving forward with work on the house until we decide what color to paint it once and for all. This decision has been 8 months in the making. Still not able to decide, we tried some new colors over the weekend just to make sure the grass, er paint, wasn’t greener on someone else’s house. We ended up mostly preferring the colors we had already selected. It is a big decision and we want to make sure that we (ok, me) won’t want to change the color later, like after the paint is purchased and going on the house.

We have run out of room on the front of the house so the side is our new testing ground. Our house looks like it has a case of the chicken pox.

1) I found a beautiful shade of brown that I really like (almost enough to change my mind from green). It glows in the light. It looks like mud in this photo but trust me, in life it is beautiful.

2) This is David’s favorite green. We have been at this so long that it is starting to grow on me.

3) My favorite green, behind the flowers. This isn’t the best photo but the color is a wonderful muted green with a gray undertone.

Any favorites between these 3 colors?

Simon wishes we would make up our minds already!

The house color debate continues…
Hopefully, whatever color combination we choose will look a little better than in my renderings but this should give you some idea of what we are considering.

Which color do you prefer? Vote by clicking on the text below: Sorry, voting has ended.

(vote only once)

Update
We have a winner! It seems that green is the overwhelming color preference. Maybe, just maybe, we will go with the green color after all? Now, if only I can convince David…

Thanks to everyone who voted!

Green house located in the West Adams section of Los Angeles.

When I was little girl, for a short time I lived in a 1920’s house that was painted olive green. The house was called the Bilz Farm but to me it was always “The Green House.” When David and I started looking for a house three years ago we weren’t even sure what type of house we wanted, but I knew I wanted to paint our future home green.

Olive green body color, cream trim, brown and ox blood red accent colors

Above is one of my favorite green exterior paint jobs in West Adams.

We removed some beadboard panels in the sleeping porch of our house and discovered original clapboard siding that was stained green! It seemed like fate. I spent my free time looking at paint samples, pouring over books, magazines and historical publications agonizing over just the right shade of green to paint our house.

Two toned green exterior with cream trim and peach colored accents. West Adams.

After driving David crazy for months, “Are you sure you like this shade? What about this one?” I finally selected what I considered to be the perfect shade of green. I painted the siding around the bottom of the porch in what became known as Favorite Green. One of our neighbors stopped by to let me know it was the ugliest shade of army green she had ever seen. Two weeks later, another neighbor 3 houses down painted their house almost the same shade as Favorite Green.

Olive body, dark olive brown trim, and burnt red accent color. West Adams.

We began to notice all the green houses in our area. A surprising number of restored houses in our area end up painted some shade of green. We are considering replacing all the cedar shingles along the top story and staining them a chestnut color and painting the clapboard siding on the first story creamy tan. We would do this so that our house would be different, but I’m having a hard time letting go of green. In my heart I still desire The Green House.

Green exterior. West Adams area of Los Angeles, CA

When we were selecting the wall color for the dining room last spring, we went through 6 different colors starting with burnt red and ending with a golden yellow. This time we were able to choose a wall color in two tries. We are certainly improving. Actually, there is not much of a “we”. David usually goes along with whatever color I select and likes it on the walls even when it’s blatantly wrong.

My first choice was a soft gold color by Sherwin Williams that looked too green next to our dining room walls. We ended up going with Wilmington Tan from Benjamin Moore’s historical collection. It is a shade darker than the Shelburne Buff from the same collection that we used on the dining room walls. The ceiling is painted Compatible Cream from Sherwin Williams.

We are almost done with the living room. There is some touch up work that needs to be done with paint and stain. Our brick fireplace got a little faded from the paint stripper so we are looking into staining it. There is some hardware to install in the room and we need to hang the antique light fixture once it arrives.

Some pictures of the living room. The walls look a little green in the photos but they are a warm golden color. Darn digital camera! We will put up nicer photos once the room is completed.

A backward glance, our living room one month ago.

Here are some pictures of the work that has started in the den.