I would do the lower and upper formal hall in one color.

The vestibule could be its own color since it is separated by doors, although a color related to the hall would be a good choice.

The mudhall, in keeping with the fact that is is "back of the house" and separated from the formal hall by a doorway and a flooring change I would do in one of their more "utilitarian" looking color. (At the time a hall like this would have probably been a "stone" color or something that did not have an expensive pigment.)

The dining room could be a saturated color.

I would relate the kitchen's and adjacent room's colors. Maybe the same color at different saturation levels.

Your ornamented ceiling can be a tint of the wall color on the ground with the ornament picked out in the trim color, or it could be something completely different, like pale pink.
(My 1840ish former living room apartment with the 14 foot ceilings and elaborate cornice was a very pale yellow with off white millwork, with a green-grey frieze and a pink ground on the ceiling) It would have been garish in a contemporary setting but it was perfectly at home in 160 year old (at the time) room.

The historic house would have been papered and each individual room would likely have been a different pattern and color in combinations that would seem chaotic to our eye. Since you are doing a historic house, you have a bit more leeway with individual rooms being individual colors than a house with a more modern floorplan.

For the more saturated colors you will need so see how they relate to the floors and the stained woodwork, so you will need at least a sample board of the stained woodwork.

thanks, palimpsest. i'll make more sample boards and post photos here tomorrow night.

You probably do not want to go directly off historical antecedents when choosing the color. The formal rooms in such houses (The rooms used for dining and even company, and the best bedroom) were used at the end of the day and were almost used in the dark with candlelight. (or solars or argands a couple decades after Georgian) So, the colors were extremely intense.

Colors like Arsenic, Babouche, and Blue Ground would have been popular in a house of your stature at the time, but only because lesser saturations would appear relatively grayed out. These could be blinding under modern lighting, potentially.

Which colors do you like in general and which do you not like?

I am biased against most yellows with stained woodwork, because they "taste funny" and sometimes give me a visual disturbance, for example. Some of the F&B pinks would have been popular at the time and although I would not use them in a modern house they could look great in yours.

I love it when pal writes about color. Had a cup of green tea, a chocolate chip cookie, and this thread for dessert. (yum)

I like blue green, light blue, hard wick white, clunch, wimbourne white, Hague blue, French gray, and pointing. Which pinks would be ok? I love pink paired with gray, but have no idea which pink would be ok. I'm terrified to choose a color for the foyer and hallways. I'll lay out my marble and stain samples tomorrow wiry paint samples on top.

Do you have furniture? Do you have a design plan for each room and how they relate to each other on the main floor?

Wimborne White is too bright white for your house. It seems to modern to me, but also to achieve such a bright white would have been very expensive as well as hard to maintain. I also think it would have yellowed quickly.

Clunch and Hardwick are both nice, Pointing seems really yellowy to me.

Pink Ground, Setting Plaster and Dead Salmon would work well.

I don't think there is a lot of furniture yet, this is a new build.

This is one of the times though where wall color can come first (imo). Historic schemes were rarely correlated the way we do it now, so a little looseness or "offness" between the wall color and the contents is consistent with the overall look. I think the Dining room at Monticello, went from something that looked like F&B Pitch Blue, to F&B Babouche without substantial change to the other contents.

Our current concept of start with the rug and end with the wallcolor (going from the most limited choice to the least limited) provides us with a very tight palette of well coordinated colors. I don't think it needs to work that way all the time though, especially in a historic house style.

we have no furniture, the exception being a few antique pieces that will in no way fill up any of the main rooms.

i don't want the house to be too matchy-matchy and prefer to just have classic pieces that can go with any color scheme.

maybe white tie for the woodwork then? everyone recommends pointing for the trim.

I might have a bias against the pointing because of the yellow undertone. James White or White Tie look good to me. If you have Pointing I would sample it in place.

I found a color on some hidden woodwork. that was very close to Old White or Hay that was probably a heavily oxidized result of what was white pigment when new.

I also hate yellow undertones. I'll check out James white and white tie in the space to see if they will work for the doors, windows, and trim.

Out of curiosity, what house are you referring to? Have pictures been shown somewhere?

BTW I have read many raves about pointing, but in the context of modern looks (I think).

Hi lynxe. I'm referring to my newly constructed house, which is a Georgian style that we are trying to make look rather historic.

I didn't know pointing was more of a contemporary shade. It seems to be a favorite for woodwork. I'm going to order some more farrow and ball samples for the woodwork and walls, put them up on sample boards in the house, and then post back here for suggestions and critique. As of yet I don't have photos.

Pointing is a gorgeous, classic white that will work in contemporary as well as traditional settings. It's a warm white but not yellow, in fact, the undertones are mostly red. But so much will depend on where you are, as F&B is very different in different parts of the country. In Virginia, there is no yellow in Pointing. I believe Jane in NY does see more yellow. White tie on the other hand, is a lovely true cream in my Virginia light. Maybe you can find my kitchen pictures (can't post from where I am right now) and you'll see Pointing on ceilings/trim, white tie on kitchen walls, and Farrow's Cream (which is definitely yellowy, and not for you) on the dining room walls.

So, in the end, you need to test all the colors you're interested in and not dismiss pointing, or anything else too out of hand. You just never know.

I agree that you need to test them in situ before you can do much else. I pretty much used only colors on the first "flap" of the little FnB brochure, and yet I tried them all mutliple times in different rooms before deciding on about 6-7 colors for the house.

pirula, how do you know pointing has red undertones? i don't see that at all, but i'm not well-versed in these paints. thanks.

I'll bow to pirula's expertise on this matter! Besides, I may well have confused pointing with another F&B white. In fact, from the way pirual has described it, pointing might be a color for us to try out on our kitchen's trim.

I know from experience: half my house is painted in Pointing. And I know from reading the Farrow & Ball descriptions on Pointing from six years ago. And i know from friends who have used it locally, and not. Please trust me and just try the sample pot before you dismiss it, or any other F & B color.

Okay, in the event that it helps, here is Pointing. on anything that looks like a ceiling, a door, a window, a trim, a built in or trim:

On trim, ceiling, corner cabinet and I don't know what else. The walls are Farrow' Cream. Defintely too yellow for you from what you've said your preferences are.

But again, Pointing in VA will be more white than Pointing in NY than Pointing in Louisisana.....

BTW, Light Blue is one of the most GORGEOUS, ethereal, can't put your finger on it, blue greens I have ever seen. If it works in your space then lucky you! You cannot go wrong!

Here is a link that might be useful:

thanks for the helpful photo.

i painted a foam board with pointing and will post photos when i'm done making all my sample boards. i've ordered 20 farrow and ball sample pots in all! better to test now than after my house is painted i guess.

yes, light blue is so pretty. :)

I still have about a dozen sample pots. Luckily they carry them locally. They are so pretty, I can't bring myself to throw them away. Maybe if i stage DH's workbench someday, LOL.

FWIW, the sample pot they kept running out of here in CT was Pointing.

you're lucky to have a local source for farrow and ball, mtnrdredux. i have to keep ordering online.

does anyone have comments on having benjamin more try to dupe the f and b paints? f and b is too pricey for us to do everywhere in the house so we're limiting its use to a few select rooms. i was going to take the paint samples to benjamin moore to try to copy their colors for other rooms. how successful is this?

I think it would be more successful and consistent to pick the Farrow and Ball color you like and then pair it up with a Benjamin Moore color that is from their palette which is very extensive.

You may not find an exact match but in place you won't really be able to discern the difference without the actual Farrow and Ball sample in the same room.

This way you can always go back to a specific known mix formulated by Benjamin Moore itself, rather than an on the spot match by a guy at the paint store. His or her match may be perfect, but it may be very hard to duplicate.

This thread hasn't had any action for a while, but I thought I'd weigh in. Sarah Richardson did an absolutely gorgeous kitchen in a new house that was built to look like a Georgian. It had crotch mahogany custom built cabinetry (wow it was gorgeous) and was set off wonderfully with F&B Light Blue. As a blue/green fanatic, I have always wanted to try the beautiful F&B blues and greens. One day I want to have an island or an old cabinet painted Oval Room Blue and some room in my house in Teresa's Green. I have seen some pics where Light Blue is gorgeous, but in other pictures, it goes very very blah gray.

Here is a link to Sarah's Georgian kitchen in Light Blue. You can't see much of the wall color in this angle, but it's there

Here is a link that might be useful: sarah kitchen

We painted our MBR Theresa's green with pale powder on the ceiling. The interesting thing was that F&B recommended their dark tones undercoat for Theresa's green ..and boy it was really dark and rich.. My painter was quite agast. I made some frantic phone calls to F&B and they said to trust it and the color after 2 coats of Theresa's green is wonderful.. It changes from blue to green based on the light in my east facing room in northern CA.

I have pointing in my living room and it complements the redwood in our ceiling and the beams. Definitely has red undertones in CA.

GWlolo, any pics?

I thought Teresa's Green was a rather light color, certainly no darker than a mid-tone. What do you mean by "dark tones undercoat"? Is that some kind of dark-tinted primer as opposed to the regular white primer that you use?

Brooke Gianetti did the exterior and much of the interior of her home in F&B Pointing.

BG Home for Sale

BG Our Home

By the way, it's no wonder your samples look so rich and luxurious. It's good to see examples of their paints.

This post was edited by snookums2 on Tue, Dec 18, 12 at 14:43

Jockewing --> I meant the F&B recommended undercoat/ primer for Theresa's green was their dark tones undercoat..

Here is a link that might be useful: Farrow & Ball Theresa's Green No.236 with Dark Tones Undercoat

I've used F&B in two houses now and basically only use that brand. It is not easy to work with because of the color shift and the undertones. The thing with F&B is the number of pigments used in the paint -- anywhere from 6 to 16 in some colors. It's also factory mixed. The other paints generally use 4 pigments and are mixed in stores. Also, F&B is a clay based paint with an exceptional surface quality in both the flat (estate) and eggshell finishes -- when we went to sell our apartment there were continual comments about the paint, how beautiful etc.

It's essential to have the fan deck as the colors on the accordion card are not accurate. That saves a lot on sample pots. Anyone using sample pots should be sure to paint big, big swatches and take care not to put the colors side by side as they will shift and the eye will mix them.

For me, rather than try to color match, just go with Ben Moore another of the better brands. They have way more colors, no shift and are easy to work with. They are more accessible and 1/3 the price.

Pointing is an excellent all purpose white with a red undertone. It's not the slightest bit yellow. I have it on most woodwork in my house and used it on our our ceilings in our apartment with White Tie on the molding, doors & trim. White Tie is a true ivory with a slight red undertone -- as I found out when I used it on the picture molding in our bedroom that was painted in Skylight, a soft blue. At times during the day it looked pinkish.

Pirula is absolutely correct when she says this paint will look different depending on latitude. The colors are formulated in England. They will look very different (and washed out) in stronger light in So Cal or Texas. It was very smart to use the darker primer in California for Teresa's Green, which can be minty in some light, and which otherwise might have looked washed out.

Perhaps the OP has solved the whole house color scheme she was trying to do. In general it works best if you stick with one color for all the ceilings, one for all doors, moldings and other woodwork and keep the same color value (lightness or darkness) from room to room. But it also depends on the style of the house.

Threeapples,

Did you ever make final paint color decisions? Would love to see.