Painting your heritage home

Heritage homes are some of the most beautiful pieces of our living history, and as such, it's important to keep them looking great.

Back in the early 1990s Ian Bowman, a leading conservation architect, teamed up with Resene to create a heritage colour chart specifically for heritage homes to help owners decide on paint schemes for these special properties.

The charts are based on original colours in homes around New Zealand, as well as international colour charts. They dug up faxes of painter's guides and did research into the Nelson paint company. So these hues are not just picked at random, they have a real history tied up with heritage homes and those stages of early settler life.

If you're interested in recreating the look and feel of original historic homes, have a look at the possible options for your property.

Early Colonial (1840 – 1870)

Ochres, umbers, creams and fawns in one or two-toned schemes were typical of this period, especially with homemade limewashes.

White was not particularly common, but light yellows were were common in timber buildings.

Mid-Victorian (1870 – 1890)

Similar to early colonial homes, the mid-Victorian era was typified with earthy tones, however more dark hues were introduced into colour schemes around this time.

Roofs were painted with dark reds (continuing the trend from two decades previously), but dark greens and greys also started popping up.

Late Victorian and Edwardian (1890 – 1914)

The trend towards dark colours continued through this era, adding maroons and dark browns to interiors, and mixing them with light shades of cream, fawn and grey.

Click here to see a full list of the colours and some examples of their use in actual buildings.

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