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Monday, April 11, 2011

A return to gray days?

My parents bought their first home in 1957. It was in a new subdivision of three-bedroom brick homes with parquet floors that housed hundreds of other thirty-somethings who had come home from World War II and started families.

In the 1940s, most of the brick homes in this part of the country were tan or red, but these suburban homes offered something new called "antique brick," a smoother textured, multi-colored product. Our brick was a deep blue-gray with a bit of orange. The interior of the house was painted a very light gray.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time looking at paint chips and pictures of paint colors from the 1950s. More and more, I'm tempted to go back to those gray days of yesteryear. Here are some examples of popular mid-century paint colors.

yourdrum.com

eichlerforsale.com

modactive.com

populuxebooks.com
erwinhouse.com
erwinhouse.com

5 comments:

  1. Aren't those colors just gorgeous? What I love about grey is that it is neutral and works with any other color. I have a color identity crisis sometimes when trying to blend warm and cool colors together in a room. I either end up with too much cool color or too much warm. I know it's because I love so many colors :)

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  2. i've got a bit of grey in our home. grey mod couch, grey "accent" wall in the bedroom. good times! its gorgeous with a light blue or green

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  3. I absolutely love the 2nd palette of colors from eichlerforsale.com. That's my house palette pretty much. I also really like the last palette, but they're all fabulous. It's funny, there are several pink houses in my neighborhood of 50's homes. Love this post!

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  4. Nifty! Have you ever notice how ads from the 50s had more text? It is like modern folk can't/won't read more. Ads seem to have very little text these days.

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  5. I believe, save for perhaps the kitchen, my 50's home was painted a medium gray throughout. The closets are the original color.

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