74 
House & Garder 
PAINTS AND VARNISHES AS MIRACLE WORKERS 
Properly Used They Add Health , Economy , Beauty 
And Comfort to the Modern Home 
HENRY COMPTON 
P AINT is an Aladdin's lamp for the 
homemaker today. It can work those 
mysterious miracles that convert sor¬ 
didness into beauty, age into fresh youth, 
that can, in fact, release all your suppressed 
desires about a pretty home. If you are 
going to build and wish your house to be 
the color of moonlight in a deep grove; if 
you dream of a living room that is gay, yel¬ 
low like sunlight; if you wish a nursery that 
will keep little children merry and healthy, 
and a kitchen that must be very modern, 
perhaps white and orange, paint will ac¬ 
complish all these delightful things for you 
—paint treated, of course, with knowledge 
and respect. 
Painting is not by any means a purely 
materialistic performance—a pail, a brush, 
a color; it is being an artist, a scientist, hav¬ 
ing experience, wisdom, patience! If you 
treat paint in a manner that is in the least 
bit casual, as one might say, “Oh, I think I 
can do that painting myself,” it will be 
just as fatal as though Aladdin had said 
‘‘Oh, rub any old lamp”. And the result 
would have been that the little genii wouldn't 
lift a finger to help. 
T HERE is no such thing as inspira¬ 
tional painting. To do it well in¬ 
volves real preparation, a knowledge 
of colors and their values, their harmonies, 
dissonances, contrasts and discords. Think of 
painting as you would of music. It has its 
own scale, and major and minor variations. 
If you want the best effects from paint, care¬ 
fully relate color to form and to environ¬ 
ment. Different types of houses inevitably 
suggest different color treatment. The back¬ 
ground of a house may entirely change a 
color scheme. The seashore for instance is 
most hospitable to yellow, orange, mauve, 
green, grey. Blue, rose, cerise, lavender, 
brown, olive all belong to the woods. 
And these gay colors are in the main only 
used for the various notes of house trimming, 
except perhaps in the case of some exotic 
little summertime house. The architect or 
owner who takes house building seriously 
would never think of painting a dignified 
structure with brilliant colors. An Italian 
villa might demand pale rose color, a Span¬ 
ish design, delicate fawn, Colonial yellow 
for the Georgian structure; this use of color 
is traditional and most pleasing. But warm 
reds, greens, bright orange, blues, are not 
employed either singly or in groups. The 
old idea of putting color on a house in dif¬ 
ferent toned tiers is today regarded as ter¬ 
rible, and fortunately the fashion for it is 
going out. No architecture can stand being 
cut up into strata. The body of a house 
may be warm or cool in tone, but if it is 
painted, it must be one tone; with color 
variations only in roof, shutters, doors, trim 
and lattice work. 
Variety of colors in one structure fre¬ 
quently results from the use of different 
building materials—cement and wood, ce¬ 
ment and brick, stone and brick, half¬ 
timber and stucco, etc. But these combina¬ 
tions of colors are fundamental and inevit¬ 
able, and if well planned weather into rich 
beauty, in no way resembling a house 
painted in layers of color, as was the cus¬ 
tom a decade ago in that awesome archi¬ 
tectural period factitiously known as the 
“Early Garfield”. When there is no under¬ 
standing or purpose in assqciating a variety 
of colors, ugliness is bound to result, and 
it is a pity ever to deliberately create it. 
The western architects, the greatest among 
them, are building rather severely plain 
houses, trusting to flowers and vines for 
color and decoration. One color dominates 
a whole exterior so far as paint is concerned, 
and then the beautiful forces of nature are 
martialed for the final ornamentation. 
T HERE are so many reasons for the 
use of paints and varnishes, and in 
the main they are so well known that 
the subject has become a little threadbare. 
When you can say of a subject that it is an 
economic necessity, of civic value, important 
aesthetically, essential for sanitary purposes, 
you are really saying that its use has become 
a necessity to our particular kind of civiliza¬ 
tion. Fancy life today without any of the 
miracles worked for us by paint and var¬ 
nish. We would confront a barren picture, 
great waste would face us and sordid condi¬ 
tions, and some serious statistics from the 
health board. 
The right use of paint is to an extent an 
assurance of health and beauty. It also acts 
as a preservative for wood, metal and con¬ 
crete. It destroys germs, it delays decay. 
And what it does for good cheer, good taste, 
good health, is incalculable. Also remem¬ 
ber that if you don’t paint, you pay! 
Painting has so long been of value in 
renovating human environment that it has 
become a symbol of cleansing and freshen¬ 
ing life. And poets, the truest of them, 
have often sought its aid in expressing a 
lovely sentiment about nature. That master 
realist, Shakespeare, pictured “cuckoo buds 
of yellow hue, paint the meadows with de¬ 
light,” and Pope, the lover of metaphor, 
has assured us that “If folly grow romantic, 
I must paint it,” while Coleridge found in 
himself a mood “as idle as a painted ship 
upon a painted ocean.” So the poet's vision 
found the significance of this humble article 
called paint, accepted its symbolism; and 
the manufacturer today accepts its symbol¬ 
ism and enlarges its practical purpose. 
I F you are going to build, and intend 
to paint your house inside and out, 
one way to gain a great deal of knowl¬ 
edge on the subject is to get a score of cata¬ 
logues which are at your service, and study 
their contents; they will bring you all the 
information you need, they will show you 
every kind and variety of paint that is being 
made today, and will tell you how to use it 
in every possible way, whether you wish oil 
paint, water color, glossy or mat finish. 
There is no phase of paint decoration that 
is not elucidated in these pamphlets, and 
usually with samples in color. Until you 
study into the paint and varnish question 
in this country, you do not realize what is 
being done to help the maker of homes and 
the remodeler of interiors as well as the 
decorator make living today comfortable, 
attractive, and free from so much of the old 
disorder and decay. 
The converting of metallic lead into white 
lead which is the bod) 7 of all good paint is 
a chemical process, the principle of which 
has been the same back to Bible days, when, 
one may remember, that “Jezebel painted 
her face and tired her hair.” But although 
the principle has been the same through cen¬ 
turies, the variations in the production of 
paint have been numberless. Successful 
painting depends not only upon white lead 
and the quality of pure linseed oil in which 
it is ground, but also upon the kinds of 
building materials to which it is applied, 
the methods of application, and numberless 
outside conditions such as weather, climate, 
etc. You cannot put on paint as you would 
a new garment. Every state of its applica¬ 
tion must be seriously considered; for in¬ 
stance, it must be allowed to dry thoroughly 
between coats, not merely a day or two but 
in some circumstances for a couple of weeks. 
With green or unseasoned lumber, the prim¬ 
ing coat of paint must be allowed several 
weeks to establish itself before the second 
coat is given. And the surface itself must 
be cleaned and dried thoroughly before the 
priming coat is put on. All exterior wood 
should also be sandpapered, and all knots, 
sappy or pitchy spots should be killed with 
spirits of shellac at the very start. Cracks 
and crevices should always be filled in with 
plaster of Paris or with the original material 
before painting and all nail holes filled with 
putty. 
In painting concrete, ample time should 
be given for the concrete itself to dry before 
even the priming coat is used; this some¬ 
times takes from four to six months. After 
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