Captain Stream HouseFebruary 2015
The Captain Stream House is looking great. And gray, much to my surprise. I hadn’t been up for a look-see for quite a while so I hadn’t known of the color change or, at least, hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. (It’s entirely possible that it had been mentioned and I forgot. There’s a lot of that going on lately.)
Looking at the familiar building from the front – from Main Street – gave me a peculiar sensation. The once-upon-a-time daffodil-yellow house had suddenly gone gray – a lovely storm cloud gray. I wish I’d asked the Mack brothers the actual name of the color although, these days, color names are often more imaginative than descriptive. Suffice it to say, I had the odd sensation of looking at an old friend (a very blond friend) who had gone gray almost overnight.
aptsin Stream House 1990
Certainly in terms of age the house has every right to be gray! Owner Martie and I are pretty sure that the original house was built in 1869 which is the same year our house went up. And look at ours – totally white (and green around the edges.) The white trim on the Captain Stream house reminds me of the way I am going white, myself – around the perimeter.
Captain Stream House 1963
The change will take a little getting used to but I remember back before the house was yellow. When that new coat of paint went on, it was such as cheerful contrast to the weathered old siding that everyone in town clapped and cheered. Little did we know that lurking behind that bright facelift was a morass of problems just waiting to be discovered.
This time, the lovely gray exterior speaks of maturity and thoughtfulness – or so it seems to me. The addition behind the replicated historic structure will update its usefulness by a century and a half and with master builders Wolfgang and Guenther at the helm, the Captain Stream house should weather many years ahead.
I am of three minds on the color of this cottage. First and foremost, in our climate, I think that letting the shingles go a natural gray and not becoming a slave to paint is the smartest thing to do. It took me 20 some years to convince my own dear husband of the wisdom of this so there may have been a very good reason for the original owners not painting the house. If you’re going to paint it has to be VERY dry and you must do a VERY good job including a lot of brushing to get in the crannies. As to color, my mother thinks that gray is a bad color to paint a house in our climate, but I think it can be very cozy and welcoming. That said, this little house looked cute in its yellow. Small houses can get away with colors that might appear garish on a larger house. You know, they COULD have painted it lavender!
This reminds me of our house color story. When we purchased the property it was a barn red. There were many homes in Seaview the same color. Almost like they had shipped in one truck of paint and everyone used it. Time came to paint the house – and I thought a color update would be nice too. We decided on a historical gray color – based on the “Historic Colors of America” series that many paint companies use. Upon researching other similar old Dutch Colonials – decided on our velvety gray with a bright white trim. Little did I know that the long time Seaview people (including weekend/summer people) had a secret meeting to discuss what to do with my paint color choice. They hated it! Imagine how I felt about this! I shed a few tears about not feeling welcome after all the hard work we were doing to restore this house and continued painting. In the end, our paint color has become very desired and a number of total strangers have knocked on the door to ask about what type of paint. Some even nicely asked if they could copy our paint and did I have the recipe?! Of course, YES! By the way, we did some shingle repair work not long ago – the 110 yr old shingles are still up – held together by a number of paint applications. Researching via photos and the actual shingles – our house in 1905 was a dark green. Around 1930 it was a pale yellow, then in the 1950s- barn red. We painted it gray in 2005. I still have plans to put up shutters – like the original house had- in pitch black. I read somewhere that shutters on an old house are like eyelashes on a pretty woman.
The color is Amherst Grey from Benjamin Moore’s Historic Color series.