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the elusive 'old red' exterior paint color

16 years ago

I'm looking for an "old red" exterior paint color that you often see on antique cape houses in New England. It's sort of a brownish red. I have searched different brand paints and find that what is often called "barn red" is too red. Then what is called "New Pilgrim Red" is too purplish red. I want to paint a reproduction 18th century style salt box house. That "old red" was a popular color back then. Does anyone have any suggestion what brand and what color I might try?

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Comments (6)

barneyrubble
16 years ago
http://www.theperiodhouse.com/oldvillagepaintcolorcharts.html

The Old Village New England Red is a great color. We also have a reproduction colonial saltbox and this color IMO is perfect. I've included a site that carries their entire line of paints. Hope this helps!
wildturkey450
Original Author
16 years ago
How long has your house been painted with this color from Old Village paints? How has it held up? Did you paint over old wood previously painted or stained or was it over new and never painted wood?
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mikend
16 years ago
You might want to look at BM Cottage Red. We have a red brick house with the dormers painted this color. It has a brownish tone that matches the brick
barneyrubble
16 years ago
My experience with Old Village paints has been excellent. I live in coastal Maine where we get everything from -20 to 95 degrees with snow, sleet, rain and the occasional hurricane. Our siding is rough sawn pine clapboards that had a previous BM solid body stain. No complaints with BM, but we were so impressed with the OV paints for our interior that we gave the siding a shot. New England red draws lots of compliments from people interested in the Colonial look, and red is one of those colors that can look right on the paint chart, but, well you know the rest...
wildturkey450
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks everyone for all your help.
sombreuil_mongrel
16 years ago
Late to the party again.
It's often difficult these days to replicate the subtlety of old-formula paints with modern materials. The old red you are remembering may have been oil+lead/earth pigments. These days dark reds tend to fade really bad outside. Often they end up purplish. Yuk.
You'll probably have better luck with a flat than a semi-gloss, FWIW.
Casey

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