During the May 2005 North Slope Historic District program, NSHD Board Member

Marshall McClintock guided us toward resources that can help determine your house style and selecting what colors are appropriate.  Here are his suggestions:

Determining Your House Style:

James Massey & Shirley Maxwell, House styles in America (1996) is an overview of house styles from the 1600s to the present day.

Casey Rosenberg, A streetcar suburb: Architectural roots of a Seattle neighborhood describes the house styles in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, which is similar to the North Slope.

Queen Anne. See “Queen Anne and why we love her so” in Old House Journal (March/April, 2005). The Stick style is the most common variant of Queen Anne in the North Slope. See “The Stick Style” in Old House Journal (May/June, 2003). To see how its ornamentation has often been stripped off, compare the twin houses at 318 and 320 North I. The Shingle style was also a popular variant of Queen Anne. These low, broad houses are sheathed all in shingles with a variety of “quaint” windows. See “Shingle vision” in Old House Journal (Sept/Oct 2003).

Craftsman (often called Bungalow in its 1½ story version). This popular style is found throughout the North Slope. See “In search of Craftsman homes” in Old House Journal (July/August 1996).

English Revival (often called Tudor). Half-timbered facades characterize this style. In the North Slope, see 624 and 702 North I and cottage variety with its rolled eaves at 815 North L. These were painted like Craftsman style homes.

Neo-Colonial and Neo-Classical styles have some minor architectural differences but were typically painted similarly., see “Neoclassical style (1890-1920)” (Feb 2002) and “Early Colonial Revival” (June, 2004) in Old House Journal.

Foursquare. The foursquare is more of a floor plan than a house style. Its style can vary from Queen Anne to Neo-Colonial to Shingle to Craftsman and interesting combinations of these as well. See “The American Foursquare (1890-1935)” in Old House Journal (Sept/Oct, 2001).

Cape Cod. This small cottage became ubiquitous in the 1920s eventually replacing the bungalow. They were typically painted as Neo-Colonials. See “The Cape Cod Revival” in Old House Journal (April 2003).

On Selecting Colors:

Roger Moss. Century of Color: Exterior Decoration for American Buildings 1820-1920. (1981) is the bible for historic color schemes. While it covers a broader period than is relevant to the North Slope, it gives excellent paint history and examples,

Roger Moss and Gail C. Winkler. Victorian Exterior Decoration: How to paint your Nineteenth-century American house historically (1987). This is an update of Moss’ earlier book with more photographs and a chart mapping Victorian paint names to contemporary paints from Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore, Glidden and Devoe. Later styles (especially the Four Squares) often used the same colors in simpler schemes.

Blanche Cirker, Victorian House Designs in authentic full color (1996) and E.K. Rossiter & F. A. Wright, Authentic color schemes for Victorian houses (2001) reproduce period color illustrations of house paint schemes.

Robert Schweitzer. Bungalow Colors: Exteriors. (2002). This new book focuses on the period from 1900 to 1920. The title is somewhat of a misnomer since the book covers most house styles of this period, especially Four Squares and not just bungalows.

Old House Journal has a number of articles on historic house colors. See “Colors for a New Century: Picking exterior paint for post-Victorian houses” (June, 2003), “Bungalow porch colors” (August 1997), and “The vary best colors” (August 2004).

True Colors Palette. (2003). www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org

The Heritage Foundation of Vancouver, B.C., has developed in conjunction with Benjamin Moore a palette of historical colors based on paint matching research from over 50 historic Vancouver homes. The Heritage Foundation also provides excellent pamphlets on identifying the decorative style of your home and developing historically appropriate color schemes. Historic Seattle is currently working on a similar project.

Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams have developed their own historic palette cards to help you select colors. These cards are limited in the colors they can show, but remember that colors from earlier periods were frequently used in later periods.

Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen have published several books on the elaborately detailed color schemes known as “painted ladies”. These include Painted ladies: San Francisco’s resplendent Victorians (1978) and Daughters of painted ladies: America’s resplendent Victorians (1987). These books provide a good source for identifying complementary trim colors, but many of the houses pictured are not painted historically.

Selecting paint. Consumer Reports, June 2004 (p. 30) and June 2005 (p. 29).evaluate brands of paints for their appearance over time, ability to resist dirt build up, color change over time, and mildew resistance.

Color consultants. Clint Miller (206-841-3054) specializes in historic renovations. Karen McClain (253-572-9320), Rhonda Canales (253-232-3289)