Painting a Mock Tudor style house question

Do you want it to look like an authentic Tudor timber framed house?

Mary

On 14 May 2005, Mary Fisher wrote

Presumably not, as he's painting the wood (rather than limewashing the whole thing). ;)

lightest colour first

RT

Well, quite ...

Mary

The timber element wasn't usually painted. It grew dark from age. Oak was usually used and it preserved itself.

The infill was limewash, often coloured.

Mary

If you use eg a gun-metal grey for the woodwork with cream or white-with-a-touch-of-grey for the infill, you will avoid the sharp contrast of black vs white.

Grey would be closer to the colour of weathered oak, and the Tudors used quite bright colours for their stucco work.

Have a look at what neighbouring properties of a similar style have done and see what you dislike least.

Owain

That's a very good solution, Owain. I'd add that it would look better in a matt or at least semi-matt finish.

Most people seem to use bright black and white. It's what's expected.

Mary

On 14 May 2005, bill norman wrote

That's absolutely fair: you did say it was a mock-Tudor (I was just having a bit of fun tweaking Mary on it, even though she's giving very sound advice on colours.)

One can get too precious about these things, but the advice that's been posted about checking out what's been done with nearby buildings is very sound.

FWIW:

1. Stark black-and-white is a very 1920s' view of what Tudor should be, but then again: if your house is a 1920s' mock Tudor, stark black-and- white would be historically accurate.

1. Given a free hand I'd probably go for cream infills, with that "towards-black-but-actually-dark-brown" colour that one found in Edwardian interiors. Like soup: very dark brown soup.

And as mentioned elsewhere, light paint first, dark paint last.

LOL! I'm untweakable :-) Spouse gave up trying donkey's years ago - as I did him!

Mary

Thqats what teh vitciorians started. Whitewash and tar.

In message , bill norman writes

Often a warm pink - I'm not sure what they put in it but it looked lovely in evening light. Very dark brown timbers go well with it.

Ox blood mainly. And cow dung.

I love the smell of napalm in teh morning....

I think you'll be waiting a while for Glade/Haze/Airwick to catch on ...

Owain

Various vegetable dyes and, very occasionally, minerals were used. The latter were expensive and largely insoluble so were rare.

Blood of any kind was useless for a permanent pink colour because it would oxidise to brown.

But as has been said, the oak timbers weren't treated and would usually bleach to a silvery colour.

Mary

Sorry, thats an urban myth. So much blood would be needed to colour it that no-one but the butcher would have access anything like the quantity needed. And blood is a good foodstuff, not to be wasted on colouring paint. Red ochre pigment (coloured earth) was generally used

Anna

~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|

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Ah yes, Anna, that's what I was trying to remember! Thanks. But vegetable dyes were known to have ben used.

Mary