Perfect paints

9. 10. COUNTRY LIFE, 11. 12.

Although decoration is a matter largely shaped by personal taste, those decorating listed, historic or period houses may be advised to consider colours or finishes in keeping with the building itself. Both the Georgian Group and the Victorian Society publish useful leaflets concerning paint, wallpaper, tiles and mouldings in older houses. Historic England suggests that traditional paints, with white lead pigment or high solvent content, may be appropriate for decorating Grade I- or Grade Ii*listed houses.

In other instances, paint companies themselves offer guidance. Little Greene’s Period Paint Colours, developed in association with English Heritage, re-create historic shades from the 18th century to the 1950s and Farrow & Ball’s range still includes a number of the colours the company developed alongside the National Trust in the early 1990s.

In its Authentic Period Colours range, Craig & Rose identifies the influences on a given colour and the period in which it would have been most widely used, for example, Chapelle, inspired by the roof of Le Corbusier’s Nôtre Dame Chapelle du Haut, a mid-grey characteristic of inter World War interiors, and the Art Deco-inspired French Turquoise. By contrast, Edward Bulmer’s Garter Blue re-creates the blue verditer used on the staircase at Osterley Park in 1787.

‘It actually translates as ‘thigh of an aroused nymph’’

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