Capturing Timeless Charm:The Perfect Farmhouse Paint Colors
If you know me, or have been following along, you know I’m a sucker for old houses. Give me a log cabin, stone cottage or big white farmhouse over a modern open floorplan any day! What can I say? I’m a classic, traditional girl. So, while working on our old house, I knew from the start that it would be painted a classic white with haint blue porch ceilings. However, white isn’t just white, and haint blue isn’t just haint blue. It takes a lot of searching through paint swatches to find those perfect colors. But, after all is said and done, I feel we have chosen the perfect farmhouse paint colors. Capturing the timeless charm of the home.
The perfect white
I envisioned a charming white farmhouse, but I didn’t want to paint the house a bright white. I wanted to find a soft warm white that still gave the appearance of true white without being too stark. So we began searching through warm white tones and came across Sherwin-Williams Westhighland White. We bought a sample, went home and painted a few places on our old house and loved it. We decided to buy a gallon and use our chicken coop as a guinea pig. The color was very nice, but the lighting in the area of our chicken coop didn’t showcase the color very well compared to the lighting where the house stands. Even so, we liked the color, so we bought 15 gallons and scheduled with the painters.
Then I got nervous. I have a problem with buyer’s remorse and I always second guess myself. I started researching houses online painted in Westhighland White, which made me even more nervous. The photos I found online looked very buttery. I was afraid the white farmhouse I had pictured in my mind would materialize as a creamy yellow farmhouse. I nearly made myself sick worrying over it. I held my breath and waited for the painters to do their job. They scraped, they sanded, they taped, and they painted. And as they did, my fears melted as I realized we had chosen the perfect white!
Contrasting doors
We live in the country where we garden and keep livestock. There is a constant flow of traffic through our doors, leading to dirty hand prints and smudges. By painting the exterior doors a dark color, we would not only add a contrasting pop of color, but it would also help hide the dirt between washings. I’ve seen door color trends of bright red, sage green and even bold yellows, but I was leaning towards a dark olive green. My husband, however, had his mind set on a dark blue. After trying multiple paint samples, we decided on Sherwin-Williams Dark Night. What a beautiful choice! This dark, almost black, blue has a slight hint of green when the sun hits it just right. It provides a deep warm entry to our home and is the perfect contrasting pop of color against the white body of the house.
Haint blue
In the South, it’s common to walk up onto a porch and see the ceiling painted a soft blue, sometimes with a tinge of green. This tradition originated in the early 19th century and can be traced back to the Gullah Geechee people of South Carolina and Georgia. In their culture, blue represents water and sky, which they believe evil spirits or “haints” will not cross. Painting their porch ceilings blue was believed to protect their homes from “haints” entering in. And so, haint blue was born. If you are of a more practical mindset, painting your porch ceilings blue is also believed to repel insects by mimicking the sky, drawing them up and away from the porch.
Either way, blue porch ceilings add a charming touch to an old home. We decided on Sherwin-Williams Atmospheric, a beautiful soft blue that compliments the warm white of our home and the deep blue doors.
Although our old farmhouse still needs a few finishing touches on the exterior, it’s looking so lovely already. What a transformation paint can make! The colors we chose feel traditional and timeless, which was exactly what we were aiming for. Stay tuned for the final reveal, coming soon!
For more on our old house project, take a look at our Farmhouse Renovation archive.
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