The Best Front Door Paint Colours

If you're anything like us, here at Relics of Witney, you won't be able to resist eyeing up beautiful front doors. Your head will be turned this way and that as you walk down a new street, being inspired, and squirrelling away ideas for the future.

 

Try Dulux Party Surprise 1

 

We all know that changing the colour of your front door is one of the simplest ways to make a dramatic change to the front of your house. 

 

Try Little Greene French Grey Dark

 

Choosing the right colour can instantly boost your kerb appeal, and, consequently, your house value. However, it's one thing to be bowled away by a particular shade you've spied but quite another to be able to confidently pin down a specific paint colour for your own front door.

 

Little Greene Carys

 

Here's where we'd love to help you. Coming into Relics of Witney is a little like hiring your own designer, only it's free! Between us all, the Relics team has decades of experience helping our customers choose their perfect paints.

 

Try Little Greene Dark Lead Colour

 By giving us relevant information about your home, the way it faces, as an example, and the period it was built, we can help you put together a look that will perfectly suit the way you live.

 

Try Farrow and Ball London Stone

 If, for instance, you live in a stone property, whose door is mostly in the shade, then we would steer you towards colours like Dulux Weathershield Green Stone from their Heritage range, which seems to radiate light, even from within the most gloomy of settings.

 

 

Or, if you feel that you would like your period home to have a slightly more contemporary feel, then we might suggest a harmonious shade to tie in with the brick or stone work, such as Dulux Weathershield Chalky Downs.

 

 

We've said it before but it's worth saying again (and again!) that Dulux Weathershield has absolutely fantastic staying power against all the varieties of weather. For your house exterior it's always worth choosing the very best exterior products to avoid needing to rectify peeling paint again in a couple of years. Using sub-standard paint is a complete false economy.

 

Farrow and Ball Pelt

 

Front door paint gets some of the highest traffic of your home, and is certainly the area that is most noticed. Take the time to get it right. The perfect front door paint should protect your door from the elements, withstand the elements and create a warm welcome for your guests.

 

Try Dulux Weathershield Fuschia Lily

 

 

 

Images via Pinterest, Voysey and Jones, Telegraph, Pinterest, Pinterest, unknown, Leopoldina Hayes, Farrow and Ball, unknown

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How To Use Osmo Country Colours On Exterior Wood

We've talked in previous posts how much we love Osmo products....

...and shown how you can use Osmo in your home to create a range of beautiful finishes.

Let's turn our attention now using Osmo products outside. Spring is the perfect time for prepping your garden to create a place that you find yourself wanting to spend time in throughout the (hopefully) long summer ahead.

Osmo Country Colour is an opaque satin-matt finish for interior and exterior woodwork. Osmo's products are based on natural vegetable oils, which makes them a fully eco-conscious choice. In fact, they comply with EURO Norm EN 71, which means that they would even be suitable for manufacturing children’s toys.

Osmo Country Colours are deeply pigmented, which will cover the colour and grain of the wood you are treating but still allow some texture to show through, maintaining the integrity of the wood and ensuring a rustic finish. 

They come in 18 colours, which can be blended together, or you can pick your own from any RAL or NCS colour tones to create your own custom mix.

Osmo products are thoroughly economical. They cover in only two coats, which act as a base coat and topcoat, with no need for primer. Osmo Country Colours are ideal to renew previously stained, weathered and discoloured wood surfaces, or to give fresh new timber a fantastic start with protection and beauty for many years

Microporous finishes allow wood to breathe, which reduces the risk of both swelling and shrinkage, which are common problems for wood that is intended for exterior use. The natural oils contained in the product penetrate deeply into the wood, rather than sitting on the surface, which keeps it elastic and healthy, preventing it from getting dry and brittle. Moisture can evaporate. Osmo Country Colours are extremely water-repellent, as well as UV-resistant and are designed to thoroughly resist mould, algae and fungal attacks.

Make sure that the surface to be covered is clean, dry and frost-free. Stir Osmo Country Colour well. Apply, with a stiff, good quality brush, evenly, very thinly and thoroughly along the wood grain. Allow 12 hours drying time. Then apply your second coat. 

Many wood preservers tend to become flaky after prolonged exposure to the elements, which brings us to one of Osmo's best features. It will not flake, peel, blister or crack. For maintenance, only one reapplication is needed but the wood will not need sanding.

Osmo recommend Country Colour for timber cladding, balconies, windows and sills, garden houses, garden furniture, pergolas, decking, screens, fences and shutters. 

If you have any questions, we're here to help...

All images via Osmo, except Living etc, Relics of Witney, The Telegraph, Osmo, Osmo, Osmo, Osmo, Osmo, Copthorne House, Osmo, Osmo

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The Best Exterior Green Paints For Your House And Garden

Spring is, well, springing into action before our very eyes. Buds are swelling. Birds are singing. And we know from experience that, at this time of year, customers everywhere are turning to their paint charts, searching for the best green paint to use on the exterior of their houses and in their gardens.

 
Let's take a look at some of the best greens out there for exterior use. The greens we find that are most consistently popular with our customers, for outdoor use, are those that harmonise with their surroundings for a gentle, and, indeed, genteel, feel. 

Our first three picks are some of our best-sellers by Dulux, whose Weathershield exterior paints are fantastically hard-wearing. To get a similar look to this beautiful orangery by Marston and Langinger, try Dulux Moorland.

You may notice that many of the greens we're recommending contain more than a touch of grey. When slightly greyed colours are used on front door in hot climates, they might look dull and drab but in England's, frankly, slightly grey-skied outdoors, greyed hues, if chosen carefully, take on a matchless serenity. 

For the stately effect of this taupe-green conservatory, try Dulux Lizard. 

Dulux Hopsack has a warmer, creamier feel.

For that hard-to-define Cotswold front door green, Farrow and Ball colours work extremely well. Who can resist the lure of French Gray?...but be careful if your site is too sunny, it can look somewhat washed out in the wrong conditions. Get it right, though, and Farrow and Ball French Gray has an unrivalled sophisticated warmth.

If you're looking for a refined mid-green then Farrow and Ball's Green Smoke works beautifully, shifting easily between green, grey and blue, depending on the orientation of the exterior.

For painting outside furniture, it's a good idea to choose slightly brighter colours, which will give a gentler effect once they are in situ, particularly if they are destined for a sunny spot in your garden. Farrow and Ball Cooking Apple Green works well for this.

And lastly, Little Greene does greens very well. Green is not always an easy colour to get right but we particularly love Normandy Grey, which is a subtle but warm grey-green....

And how's this for a rich, dark green? Little Greene's Obsidian Green keeps its depth wherever its painted which makes it an excellent choice for rooms which open out onto your garden.

Little Greene's Invisible Green has been designed with planting in mind to create a cohesive feel to your house and garden. It's the kind of colour that has a charm of its own, even if falls into disrepair.

For a great heritage paint, our last choice is Little Greene's Light Bronze Green, which is based on a popular Victorian colour used to paint doors and railings in the 19th Century.

Have you been feeling overwhelmed by choice? It's a problem we're proud to help our customers overcome every day. Come into Relics of Witney and take advantage of our huge experience, to let us help you find your perfect exterior green paint colour. 

Images via Carolyn Rohme, Marston and Langinger, Marston and Langinger, Georgian Design, AbodeOrangeries, 

Farrow and Ball, Relics of Witney, Sims Hilditch, Litte Greene, Pinterest, This Old House

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The Best Front Door Colours To Paint Cotswold Stone Houses

Relics of Witney is based in the heart of the Cotswolds, where, unsurprisingly, many of our customers live in homes built using beautiful Cotswold stone, like this make-believe house featured in The Holiday.

Try Little Greene's Lead Colour for a similar paint effect

Today, we want to help you think about the best paint colours to highlight the gorgeously complicated hues of Cotswold stone. Although our advice is always tailored to the specific needs of each customer, there are, broadly-speaking, three roads to go down; the first is to choose a paint colour that will harmonise with the stone, gently blending the door, windows and building to create a cohesive whole. We often recommend muted earthy colours to create this look, such as Earthborn's Cricket... 





  or Dulux Heritage Stone Green





Try Little Greene's Woodbine for the gentle cream pictured below. It's worth bearing in mind that you may need to pick out a much darker version of the colour you imagine to counteract the bleaching effect of the sun.



 Alternatively, draw the eye of passers-by with a contrasting shade that will still enhance the stone but stands on its own two feet colour-wise. Paint and Paper Library's Eucalyptus will give a similar effect to the next image.





A more contemporary take on this look is created by the use of dark colours that give a smart urban feel (think of Abigail Ahern with her door in Farrow and Ball Downpipe).



The third choice is to err towards the classic.



Sanderson's Fine Black is a perfect choice if you'd like to create a classic-looking frontage...





...or try Sanderson's Graphite for a softer effect.

Once you know which route you'd like to take, we always advise customers to take a good look at the front of their homes and ask themselves which colours predominate the stone. This question isn't as easy as it sounds. Without looking, they may say that it's 'grey' or 'yellow' but let's take a close look at this small sample of Cotswold stone:

Surprisingly, there are sections that are blue, dark brown, pink and muted orange, as well as the creamy-beige of the pointing. Identifying the specific tones in your stone, and then echoing those tones in your chosen paint colour will help to bring the whole building to life.

  

From the prevailing tones that you've identified, we can offer very specific advice, from our extensive knowledge of paint colour. For instance, if your stone tends towards the orange end of the spectrum then pick a red front door that also holds orange undertones. Try using Farrow and Ball's Radicchio.

Below is an example of how using the same red with Cotswold stone at the blue-ish end of the spectrum just doesn't grab your attention in the same way.

However, the blue door on the right (take a look at Farrow and Ball's Hague Blue) works beautifully as it picks up on the blue-ish tones of the Cotswold stone.

We hope this summarised look at some of the best front door colours to harmonise with Cotswold Stone has given you lots of inspiration. If you have related questions then do get in touch, either in person or via our website, to take advantage of our vast knowledge and and equally impressive enthusiasm!

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Farrow and Ball Exterior Primer and Undercoat

We're going to use a Farrow and Ball Exterior Primer and Undercoat as the first stage of protecting our oak wellington-boot rack from the elements. This, as the name implies, functions as both a primer AND an undercoat, saving you the cost of buying both separately.

Farrow and Ball often get bad press for their exterior finishes but we feel this is due to mistaken application, rather than the products themselves.

The Farrow and Ball Primer and Undercoat, and the Farrow and Ball Exterior Eggshell work together as a system paint.

Wood is often not kiln-dried as thoroughly as it used to be and so is regularly sold with some moisture left in. Farrow and Ball Paints are microporous. They allow that moisture OUT but don't allow outside moisture IN. The Primer and Undercoats AND the exterior eggshell are both microporous, so the two work together extremely effectively.

Problems will arise, however, if a non-microporous primer is used, and then Farrow and Ball Exterior Eggshell applied on top. The Farrow and Ball paint is extremely flexible and grips well, which usually creates a superb finish. However, if a non-microporous primer is used, these very qualities will work against it. The ability of the Farrow and Ball to shift with movement will cause any rigid primer to pull away from the wood.

If your exterior paint is peeling, we have a good test to see whether it is your primer that has failed, or your paint. All you need to do is to check the underside of any paint chips. If the underside is the colour of the primer then the primer has failed, but the paint has done its job and clung well to the primer. If there is no primer visible on the paint chip, then it is usually the paint that has failed, and the primer has clung to the surface as intended.

Farrow and Ball Undercoat and Primer sits beautifully on untreated wood, and will also sit well on old paint, as long as the paint has been sanded back to the point where it's not peeling.

However, it WON'T work well on any kind of exterior woodstain, such as Sadolin. If you have wood that has been treated in this way, then it would be better to use a primer such as Zinsser, and use a complementary paint like Little Greene, which are also available from Relics. 

Next week, we'll be looking at Farrow and Ball Exterior Eggshells.

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