by bungalow101 | May 21, 2022 | Paint
OLD BUNGALOW COLORS!
There were many paint companies selling paint at the turn of the century & they all created palettes to reflect the natural colors of the new A&C trend.
Paint had evolved tremendously since early humans mixed natural pigments like charcoal, clay, & iron oxide with binders such as animal fat, blood, or plant sap to create cave art.
Over centuries, paint evolved along with human technology as dwellings became more sophisticated but still required coatings to preserve them & art to make them home. You can learn more about paint chemistry here.
Looking at the history of paint just prior to the time that our bungalows were built, the most impressive developments were created by Henry A. Sherwin and Edward P. Williams who first established The Sherwin-Williams Company. At the time, paint was purchased in its component parts & was mixed onsite by painters, putting a great deal of lead into homes. (Part 7 again) Their company revolutionized the industry with the invention of the first ready-mixed paint in 1875. These guys were serious about paint, & in 1884 the company hired Percy Neyman, the first full-time chemist in the American paint industry, to improve product quality and formulas. In 1877 they patented a resealable paint can, once again keeping harmful chemicals out of the environment.
I am going to skip telling the story of all the innovators at the time because they are well represented in a wonderful Facebook group, 100 Years of Paint Sample Cards. You can see many, many sample cards here from a huge number of manufacturers, & discover many colors that would be bungalow appropriate.
SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., AMERICA’S PREMIER RETAILER
I am going to talk about 1 manufacturer. We all know about Sears kit houses-prefabricated homes that were delivered by train all ready to assemble on site, but Sears also offered many products as well as their own line of paints, Seroco paints, an abbreviation for Sears, Roebuck & Co. You could purchase alone, or use to make your kit house your very own.
In the early 20th Century Sears was a retail giant & a staple in many homes. Pardon my tangent, but Sears is a lovely part of my own history. As a rite of passage, when I was a pre- teen in the early 60’s, I was dropped off at Sears on Saturday afternoons with a slightly older friend. For the first time, no parents accompanied us! We were free!!! I loved shopping in their clothing department in which a grown-up friend from my ballet school was the Fashion Coordinator for the teen clothing section. I felt very sophisticated to know her & bought most of my clothing there. At the time, Sears clothing was considered to be very fashionable.
My mother, probably felt safe dropping her wild child off there for several hours because Sears had always been a part of her life. Offering rural mail order from 1886, I’m guessing that Sears provided my great-grandparent’s impoverished farm family with dreams of goods far beyond their reach. My mother often joked about how the catalogue was kept in the farm outhouse with the corncobs, scratchy, but effective, when, as a child she went to visit her grandmother. I have little doubt that my grandmother, busy with 3 children, took advantage of Sears mail delivery to clothe everyone & to obtain goods not available in her small town in West Virginia. Below is a Seroco paint catalogue from 1914. An inside page shows the colors that were offered. In part 5, I go to Seroco paints to demonstrate what I have written about color theory.
WHAT ABOUT PAINT COLORS FOR YOUR HOUSE? KEEP READING!
Part 1, THE COLOR LESSON
How to combine colors on your bungalow to most enhance its features.
Part 2, COLOR HARMONY
Combining colors to please the eye.
Part 3, THE ARTS & CRAFTS MESSAGE
The philosophy behind the beauty.
Part 5, WHAT ABOUT PAINT COLORS FOR YOUR HOUSE?
How to use everything you know about color to pick your dream colors.
Part 6, PAINTING YOUR BUNGALOW EXTERIOR CHECKLIST
Making the big choices.
Part 7, IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHEMISTRY- LEAD PAINT IN BUNGALOWS
Because I think I’m everybody’s mama.
Now head on over to Part 5. to put together all the information you have learned about color theory, with historic colors from the Seroco line. Adding the modern colors now available from Ben Moore, you will be able to formulate palette choices for your own house.
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
Sign up for our newsletter & receive our FREE E-book, 7 VITAL Things to Do Before You Hire a Contractor.
by bungalow101 | May 20, 2022 | OUTSIDE, Paint
WHAT ABOUT PAINT COLORS FOR YOUR HOUSE?
Well, we have looked at THE COLORS LESSON in Part 1., which reviews the basics of color theory that we all learned in school. Part 2., COLOR HARMONY, was all about how to combine colors on your bungalow to most enhance its unique features. THE ARTS & CRAFTS MESSAGE, Part 3., was a lesson in the social & design philosophy that originated in England over 100 years ago, & how it applies to color. In the next one, Part 4., LET’S LOOK AT SOME BUNGALOW COLOR, we viewed actual paint color samples of the period.
So what now?
PUTTIN’ ALL THAT BOOK LARNIN’ TO USE
We studied the use of color theory & also color harmony as it applies the Arts & Crafts Movement. Now we’re going to put all that information together & toss in modern day paint colors by Ben Moore, that you can use on your own house. We’ll go from some simple combinations, to more complex harmonies.
What you will see in the images below are the harmonies of the color wheel translated into colors from the Sears Seroco historic palettes. Below on the left is our starting point, the wheel. On the right, are the Ben Moore colors, as translated from the historic colors.
In some cases I have shown the Seroco colors to be more subdued in their BM editions. I prefer palettes that meld with their environments, so the BM & the Seroco don’t always look the same. The BM colors that I have chosen might be more muted, or more toned.
ANALOGOUS PAINT COLORS FOR YOUR HOUSE
These groups, generally composed of 1 side-by-side, 1 secondary & 1 tertiary color, create a cohesive combination, sharing one another’s tones. They are the color harmony of nature- the cool greens of the forest in one section of the wheel & the warm reds & oranges of the same forest in the fall, on the other side of the wheel. It’s interesting to see what combinations pop up when you slide around the color wheel.
Here is the analogous color wheel, with the same colors from Ben Moore, as translated from Seroco, above.
COMPLIMENTARY PAINT COLORS FOR YOUR HOUSE
Using 2 contrasting/complimentary colors is a great way to achieve bold color, without creating clutter. This combination simplifies the process & the pallet. It’s also a handy choice when you have another design element such as stone, brick or unfinished wood, that you must include. Below is an example of this harmony choice, again featuring the color wheel on the left & the current, Ben Moore version of the historic color on the right.
By spinning the color wheel, to the right or to the left, & adding black & white in differing amounts to the base color, you can expand these color choices.
MONOCHROMATIC
Next is monochromatic color, a base color repeated from light to dark. This can be created by adding more or less white to the base color, but also by adding black or gray. It doesn’t sound very exciting, but you can create a dramatic look by using this palette. Below is Ben Moore’s version.
TETRADIC PAINT COLORS FOR YOUR HOUSE
I generally suggest using no more than 3 base colors, because we don’t want to become a fussy Victorian & because using 3 is the most pleasing to the eye. There’s even a rule about it, called simply, The Rule of Three. Now, any group of odd numbers will work, but the simplicity of 3 really nails it, proving a visual that is balanced, relaxed & interesting. It’s just how we are wired.
But, let’s go our own way for a minute, & see what we can do with the 4 colors of the tetradic color wheel. Above is the Soroco historic paint sample sheet, & below is our friend Ben. Seroco didn’t give me much for purple so I fudged. Let me know what you think in the comment section below!
TRIADIC PAINT COLORS FOR YOUR HOUSE
Because this color wheel example displays only primary colors, the Soroco & the resulting Ben Moore choices are quite a bit different from the wheel. While Ben does offer some clear, primary hues, the historic (Soroco) sample tends more tertiary, a la the smaller, more earthy A&C range.
NEUTRAL PAINT COLORS FOR YOUR BUNGALOW
Always sophisticated, this palette is simple but can still surprise as strongly as most any combination of colors. (Notice I said most. I’ve seen some poor bungalows I can describe only as Key West inspired. We’re talkin’ strong! I prefer the lime to be in the pie.) I did not choose to employ the black in the Ben Moore palette. I prefer the little bit softer dark, dark brown.
Of course you can also mix any hues with neutrals. It’s a lovely combination!
THE GREAT DIVIDE
The proportion of area for each color is as important as the choice of colors. Because there is so much color on a home’s exterior, you can easily create an imbalance that will visually distort how your house appears. An imbalance of color will create disharmony & confuse the eye. It wants to know where to focus.
Correct color proportion is 60% dominant, 30% secondary, 10% accent. The dominant color sets the mood. The theme of the Arts & Crafts Movement is nature, but, within that, houses can be more or less formal.
THE HARE HOUSE
The Hare House was shingled & had never been painted. I replaced about 10% of the shingles due to sun damage, then chose a stain color that would receded the house even further back than it sat on its large lot. I had a very large, old pine tree & had planted a stand of birches & I wanted to honor their space. I gave my painter the 3 chips- one stain & 2 paint & sped off to the office. Upon my return, I discovered that he had not used stain, but paint. It broke my heart.
The Hare House was very formal. I chose traditional colors for it- my 60% is a very dark brown, a neutral, to express this.
My secondary, 30% color was a redder brown. The contrast was not huge, but it accentuated the change of material & made it easy to see the detail in the trim.
The green detail (the 10%-ish) on the windows, a nod to the garden was a subtle complimentary color to the red brown. Both the red & green were heavily toned, muddy, tertiary colors, with the red leaning cool & the green leaning warm.
You can fudge with 70%, 20% & 10% if the details of your house necessitates it. This house also shows a good example of of the use of color with a natural element, such as stone.
ERIC KRAUSE’S BUNGALOW
Eric is an interior designer who restored this wonderful house in the Old Seminole Heights Area of Tampa, Florida. The restoration is meticulous. Every choice he made is perfect & very reflective of the history of the area.
Here is how he painted the exterior. Note the choices he made in complimenting the natural brick colors.
WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
Part 1, THE COLOR LESSON
How to combine colors on your bungalow to most enhance its features.
Part 2, COLOR HARMONY
Combining colors to please the eye.
Part 3, THE ARTS & CRAFTS MESSAGE
The philosophy behind the beauty.
Part 4, OLD BUNGALOW COLORS
Color choices when our houses were constructed.
Part 6, PAINTING YOUR BUNGALOW EXTERIOR CHECKLIST
Making the big choices.
Part 7, IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHEMISTRY- LEAD PAINT IN BUNGALOWS
Because I think I’m everybody’s mama.
by bungalow101 | May 20, 2022 | Paint
YOUR BUNGALOW COLORS EXTERIOR CHECKLIST
It’s time to make some big decisions & there are so many choices, so use this bungalow colors exterior checklist to put yourself on the right path.
I have seen people spend months agonizing over their many choices only to finally choose & be disappointed. I have driven by bungalows whose colors perplex me & I wonder how the homeowner feels about them.
So, now that you know:
A. How colors work
&
B. The philosophy behind the design of your house, let’s figure out how to blend these with your own voice to create a harmonious color scheme for your home. I’m a checklist person. At any particular moment in time, I’ve my paw in many pots. To keep myself on a linear path instead of whirling in circles, mapping out my steps in their proper sequence increases my efficiency. I love the sensation of making check marks by the DONEs!
HERE’S MY EASY-PEASY BUNGALOW COLORS EXTERIOR CHECKLIST
1. Ideally, the inside & outside of your house should harmonize- conveying the same message in a coordinated voice. Let’s start with focusing on the message. (I’m assuming that if you have made it thus far, you have somewhat of an interest in the Arts & Crafts Movement.) What do you want your house to express to the world? For me, I’m an artist; I love gardening; I’m a humanitarian. I want people to feel comfort & to be uplifted by my house. What do you want your own house to say to the world? Let’s start with that.
2. How do you want your house to serve you? Is it a place of refuge where you come to heal from your battering day in the workplace or in the world? When I was battling Walgreens in our fight to save an important historic building in our town, coming home from a day of petition signings or town meetings, the details of my beautiful house were a healing distraction.
Or, is it a fueling station where you get rejuvenated for the next day? Or, both????
3. Do you work from home? Do you want your house to energize you when you hit that 4 o’clock slump?
4. Do you lead a more casual or a more formal lifestyle? When you throw a party, do your guests chat over ginger tea & gluten free cookies, beer & pretzels, or juice boxes & chicken nuggets?
5. Consider your own color preferences. What colors do you like to wear? What colors draw your eye? Which ones brighten your mood? Take a look at the colors & color groups presented in parts 1, 2 & 3. Consider your reactions to them.
6. How much sun does the front of your house receive during various parts of the day? Does it have overhanging eaves? What direction does it face?
7. Do you want your house to recede, with darker colors or to move forward?
8. How about your landscaping? If you have flowering plants, do they tend toward warm or cool colors?
9. What are the colors of the houses near you? You don’t want to choose a color that is not harmonious or too much the same. Of course, your neighbors could get inspired by you &…
10. Stepping back inside, do you have textiles that you plan to use- draperies, rugs, upholstery? It is always good to have a starting point & the colors that you are using inside your house can be a great inspiration. I have a rug that guided me in choosing the colors for my Tampa house. (Sorry I haven’t included an image of it for you to see but we keep the rug in storage because my cat has tummy issues.)
11. How about, artwork, pottery & other collections. They are a wonderful inspiration for your palette. They are the things that you love.
12. What are the tastes of your significant other? You might not be the only one who lives in your home & you want your partner to be happy & sweet-tempered.
It’s an interesting phenomenon in my household, that we always work it out in the end. We may start out with completely divergent favorites, but if we persist, & continue looking & searching, we are both always thrilled by our final choice. So, just keep talking.
THE PURPOSE OF THE CHECKLIST
This is not a list to just skim through.
Yeah, YOU! Put down the paintbrush & pick up a pen. Above is a list of things to examine before you even consider hitting the paint store. Painting the exterior of a house is a huge commitment. Truly huge. It’s not a paint chip or paint sample, it’s many square feet of expensive color. so figure out your color self & maybe, review what you know about color. Then, make the decisions & head to the paint store.
AND AFTER YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR CHECKLIST, KEEP READING!
Part 1, THE COLOR LESSON
How to combine colors on your bungalow to most enhance its features.
Part 2, COLOR HARMONY
Combining colors to please the eye.
Part 3, THE ARTS & CRAFTS MESSAGE
The philosophy behind the beauty.
Part 4, OLD BUNGALOW COLORS
Color choices when our houses were constructed. .
Part 5, WHAT ABOUT PAINT COLORS FOR YOUR HOUSE?
How to use everything you know about color to pick your dream colors.
Part 7, IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHEMISTRY- LEAD PAINT IN BUNGALOWS
Because I think I’m everybody’s mama.
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
Sign up for our newsletter & receive our FREE E-book, 7 VITAL Things to Do Before You Hire a Contractor.
by bungalow101 | May 17, 2022 | Features
I’m a gardener & a bungalow style custom shed for me was a much needed item. I love to buy pots, tools & soil supplements & I needed a place to stash the dang stuff. With only a porte cochere & lacking a garage, a shed was also required to store my husband’s items- hardware, tools & of course, the bar-be-que.
I’m also a big fan of tiny houses, so I wanted it to look like the wee folk could live there in comfort. And, it had to be lovely. It’s plunk in the middle of my backyard so it needed to complement the plants & ideally, mimic my bungalow.
It had taken me a year to choose my exterior colors & I was in love with my clipped gable & really wanted to see those again.
When I purchased my 1925 bungalow, it had a funky old shed that totally creeped me out to enter. In Florida, things get critter filled & really disgusting. As a gardener, I had to go in it often to access my supplies. Ick!
I decided that I needed something nicer, so I started pricing pre-built sheds. They were expensive, not historic & UGLY. So, I decided to go custom & I had some plans drawn by my friend, Tampa architect, Alan Dobbs, for a shed & got some prices for all the trades I would need- carpenter, roofer, painter- for a tiny shed! It all added up to too much plus, I had just completed the restoration of a 1907 Victorian that was in terrible shape & I sorely needed a rest from herding tradespeople & breathing sawdust.
MASTERS OF THE CUSTOM BUNGALOW SHED
I called Historic Shed & was happily surprised at the price they quoted for everything! Because of their great reputation, I even let them pick the hardware & design the doors. I never let anybody choose anything for me but I was tired of making choices. I was thrilled with the doors & the wonderful hinges they brought.
The best part was that it was installed in just over a day. They custom built it in their workshop & then hauled to my backyard, completed & even painted. I am sure that it would have taken a month-long project with all the trade coordinating that I would have had to have done.
I then had a shed that is the mini-me version of my beautiful bungalow. It holds everything I could need & it is clean & fresh. It made another season of gardening quite appealing!
The new custom shed incorporates the color, siding and trim details, roof-line, and outriggers of the bungalow while adding traditional elements such as the bead-board carriage house style doors. At 12’x12′, the storage shed did not require a permit for construction, but did have to undergo design approval by the City of Tampa historic preservation staff. They loved it!
Truth is, I’d like to live in it. I adore tiny spaces. But, it’s full of stuff, which is why we built it & I guess that I’ll just need to commission a doll house to live out my childhood fantasies with the fairies.
P.S. Historic Shed has moved on & is no longer building sheds, however, you can purchase their plans from Liberty House Plans.
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
Sign up for our newsletter & receive our FREE E-book, 7 VITAL Things to Do Before You Hire a Contractor.
by bungalow101 | May 17, 2022 | Doing it the right way
I wrote this article about restoring a bungalow the right wa-a-ay back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, around 2006 when I first moved to Tampa. I had left the little “town” of Eagle Rock, a historic neighborhood in N.E. Los Angeles, left the Hare House, a beautiful bungalow on the L.A. Historic Register which I had meticulously restored (the right way!), but brought with me new determination & a shiny new soapbox, after being defeated in the saving of the wonderful historic building, at our corners of Main & MainWe had fought a valiant fight, but greed & lack of our councilman’s foresight (He got slammed in the next election.) won out so instead of being treated to a view of one of the world’s most wonderful (& scarce) Streamline Moderne buildings on this planet, when you shop downtown, you encounter a Walgreens, sitting in a sea of parking.
I moved across the country, to one block away from a man who had defeated Walgreens, saving a block of historic bungalows & happily worked side-by-side in our neighborhood’s historic preservation committee with him until he died too soon. We had our work cut out for us in our neighborhood. Bisected by the I-275 in the early 70’s, the neighborhood suffered a sharp decline.
By the time I arrived in 2005, the neighborhood association had used its teeth to ignite a Renaissance, but what this meant was that our houses were ripe for flippers, looking to make a quick buck at our neighborhood’s expense. After experiencing a broken heart over & over in the search for my own bungalow, as I witnessed historic materials having been removed for builder grade garbage, I wrote this article for my wood flooring website. I was addressing homeowners, encouraging them to employ best preservation practices to their own historic bungalows, but hoped it would spill over to the flippers who cared zero about the neighborhood or history. A girl can dream!
RESTORING A BUNGALOW – THE RIGHT WAY-2006
Be a wise investor. Follow market trends & spend your money with an eye to the future- historic rehabilitation, rather than remodeling, modernizing or budget fix-up’s.
An older home is no different from any other antique. Would you replace the handles of a priceless Ming vase with new plastic ones in order to “modernize” or improve its use as a pitcher? Nope. It would be disrespectful to the culture & the artist who produced it & it wouldn’t be economical. You would reduce its value as an antique!
Craftsmanship has declined & the costs of both labor & materials have skyrocketed since these houses were built. You could not build a comparable house today for what you would pay for a fine old home with its antique features & wonderful character.
Here are some things I did (& did not do) & will (& will not do) to increase my home’s comfort, value & appeal, as well as lovingly preserve it for the next fortunate steward:
1. I researched my style of house, the bungalow, as well the philosophy behind its particular design, so that I could make correct decisions regarding its rehabilitation. It saved me much money & grief to learn from the experiences of others.
2. I DID NOT destroy historic materials. Where something needed repair, I gently repaired it, I did not replace it. Plaster, for example, provides a much more lovely surface than drywall & it is not difficult to patch. Wood floors can often be refinished. Do not replace them unless they are worn to below the tongue & groove. And if you must install new, use real wood. I had my lovely old wood windows restored when I painted my interior walls & they work smoothly, giving me a lovely, old world look into my gardens. It was not costly, which replacements would have been.
3. I did not remove or alter any character defining features. I DID NOT try to “modernize” or “improve” the house. I did not add odd bits of architecture, appropriate to other periods or styles of house. Consider how horrid a 60’s bathroom looks in a bungalow today. Well, 40 years from now, the currently fashionable spa style bathroom will strike the eye with the same degree of discord. Install a new “bungalow” bathroom (or one that suits the period of your old house) & it will never go out of style!
4. I handled the structural problems discovered in my pre-purchase home inspection, & I replaced the roof. Water intrusion destroys houses. I am ever watchful for signs of leaks.
5. I got my wood treated with Borates, naturally occurring mineral salts that are deadly to termites, carpenter ants & roaches. Considered harmless to humans & ecofriendly, I had all the wood that could be reached in the attic, crawlspace & everywhere, treated. I have my house inspected at least twice a year & keep an eagle eye out for signs of any & all types of nasty, wood destroying organisms.
6. Landscaped with plants that would do well in our climate & complement the style of my house. I did not use many Florida natives, instead going for an exotic tropical look, but I do recommend natives. I feed my plants with organic fertilizers & water the majority of them with a drip system which conserves water.
7. I planted a couple feet away from the house so moisture from the plants did not destroy the siding & it gave me room to do periodic inspections. I got new gutters which I had cleaned every year & put gutter extenders on them to run the water away from the house. My banana trees loved it!
8. I painted the exterior of my house with period appropriate colors. I made sure that all surfaces, inside & out, were well prepared so that the paint would adhere well & look good. If you have shingles, that have never been painted, keep them that way. Do not paint them. Just re-stain them. If some are damaged, replace those.
9. DO NOT stucco or put up siding which can become a haven for termites, rats and roaches & mold, & reduce the value of your property. If your house has these coverings, they actually can be removed. Often, the surface underneath is in surprisingly good condition!\n\n
10. I rebuilt the glass doored cabinets in the living room & dining room that had been removed by a previous owner. Prior to installing them, I photographed the areas where they would sit, documenting the fact that they were added, not original. I passed this information on to the person who bought my house.
11. I joined my bungalow neighborhood association & Tampa Preservation, Inc. I raised my voice for the built environment of our past. I encouraged others to raise theirs-LOUD!
12. Nearly 20 years later, I started a blog about bungalows, America’s favorite house. I’m hoping that my stories educate, enlighten & empower you in restoring a bungalow the right way!
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
Sign up for our newsletter & receive our FREE E-book, 7 VITAL Things to Do Before You Hire a Contractor.
