Understanding black beyond its dark side
Black-hued houses bring an aura of power and independence
I began compiling pictures of black houses — partly in response to the election — and persuaded my husband that we should paint our house some shade of black. I wanted my house to be, as Morrissey crooned, the colour “I feel on the inside.”
My father said I was crazy. My painter tried to convince me that the colour would fade in five years. Black represents sadness, anger or grief for many. But that’s not all. A 2004 study of college students’ responses to colour found that black also evokes a sense of richness and power. Black can be enveloping and warm, and even signify high drama, noted Judith Gura, at the New York School of Interior Design. In medieval times, Gura said, black was associated with royalty; it was luxurious.
Black can be practical, too. In northern Europe, where tar was used as a water sealant on exteriors, the colour stuck. But those black buildings are in Scandinavia or the Netherlands, far from my pallid suburban neighbourhood.
But now I have more allies. In the past couple of years, black homes have begun decorating websites like Dwell, Gardenista and Apartment Therapy. PPG Paints named “Black Flame” its 2018 colour of the year.
Then the impossible happened. HGTV — the model of mainstream American cheerful design — chose to colour its 2018 Dream Home SherwinWilliams’ “Tricorn Black.”
Brian Patrick Flynn, an Atlanta interior designer in charge of the Dream Home, said he uses black to give a house without architectural significance some identity. Flynn’s own home is painted black; so is his cabin about an hour outside Atlanta.
He said he believed this interest in black was a reaction to the white paint and white kitchen trend, which started during the housing market crash a decade ago. People turned to white because if they wanted to sell their houses, they needed the colour to be simple and inoffensive.
“We’ve gone from everybody doing things that are really safe with white or cream or dove grey,” Flynn said. Now people are sick of the news. They’re miserable about the world. They want to take charge of their homes. “I think people are embracing things that may have been considered risky before and saying, ‘Let’s just go for it,’ ” he said.
In early 2016, Victoria Smith of design blog SF Girl, painted her home in L.A.’s Echo Park neighbourhood black — Benjamin Moore’s “Onyx” — after seeing a slew of houses painted that colour in Amsterdam. For her, black houses are symbols of power. “It’s like, don’t mess with me,” she said.
Smith was initially worried about her neighbours’ reaction. “I think they thought I was some Goth person,” she said. Then more people in the neighbourhood began painting their homes black.
“You have to have a certain amount of confidence to use black,” says Abigail Ahern, an interior designer and retailer in London, “and I think we all have more confidence than ever before,” she said. “We’re channelling our own direction.”