Colorful Mid-Century Modern Exterior Doors

I was out for a walk in the neighborhood and crossed paths with a few colorfully painted mid-century modern doors.

I love the mint green color and unique window on this one.

And yellow really pops against a gray house.

I also love the modern address numbers in the window.

Pantone Paint Universe at Lowes

I thought it'd be nice and easy to match Pantone colors with real-world objects, and then just use Pantone paint colors as mid-century wall colors. But it turns out that Pantone has stopped making their own paints and has partnered with Lowe's to bring 100 colors to every Lowe's store. The problem is that you can't match Pantone color chips to their paint colors anymore. They all have hardware store style names now instead of numbers, and they're limited in color. Sadly, what was once a great resource for the color perfectionist has become limited version for the general public.

Matching Real-World Objects to Pantone Colors

I don't know why I never thought of this, but Pantone is perfect for color matching real-world items. Luckily, Tiny PMS Match thought of it and has started a collection of photos doing just that.

It's a great idea for your mid-century home because you can take your favorite flower, a beloved knickknack or even a vintage magazine ad and turn them into mid-century modern paint colors for your wall. It will be especially easy if you use Pantone paint.

Mid-Century Modern Color Palette Inspiration from Movies

You already know how to paint your home like a Wes Anderson film, but now you can broaden your cinematic color palette inspiration with Movies in Color. The site takes a still from a movie and creates a light, medium and dark color palette out of it. If you ever wanted to live in Amelie (and you wouldn't be alone in that wish), now you can.

Kroehler Mid-Century Ranch Paint Colors

This Kroehler Color Harmony Guide for Your Living Room comes from Cul-De-Sac Shack. I love the idea that one little cheat sheet could help you coordinate your entire living room: furniture, wall paint, rug color, drapery and all. And 50 years later it's a great little cheat sheet for those of us looking coordinate our mid-century modern living rooms or just looking for shades of authentic mid-century paint colors.

Paint Your Home Like a Wes Anderson Film

I'm a big Wes Anderson fan. Rushmore is my favorite movie and I like every single one of his other films. Part of that love comes from the visual style of and colors within his films. Someone was nice enough to break down each Wes Anderson film into a simple color palette. So now, if you wanted to paint your house like, and essentially live in, The Royal Tenebaums you can.

Blue Mid-Century Modern Eichler Doors

When we painted our mid-century modern door blue, we didn't realize how extremely Eichler it was. It makes me love our blue front door even a little bit more.

Source of photos 

Bright Mid-Century Paint Colors at Vilas Zoo

I took a trip Madison, WI a while back and stopped by the Henry Vilas Zoo, where I became enthralled with the Jack Lussier Conservation Education Pavilion.

I love the bright mid-century exterior paint colors of the sun rays (or sunrise depending on how you look at it).

For me, this is exactly the type of building and design that should be at zoos, museums and the like. It's so perfectly retro and it shows age and interest. It's the type of thing you remember 20 years after a middle school field trip.

Resene Mid-Century Modern Interior Paint Colors

Over the course of three years, fashion designer Karen Walker and Resene paint developed a line of mid-century modern interior paint colors. Karen said, 

I was searching for a worn sort of mood. I like colors that have a muted, burnished sort of quality, as if they were thoughtfully painted on walls decades ago and have faded to perfection in the following years.

Sounds perfect for anyone trying to find the right paint for their mid-century home.

To celebrate the line of paints, Resene commissioned some architectural models of mid-century modern homes and then painted them with the line of Karen Walker paints.

The paint looks great on models, I'd love to see it on real walls.

Mid-Century Color Palette in Comics

The Golden Age of comics was from 1838 to 1950 and I recently ran across these comic book color charts from that era. If you're looking for some mid-century paint colors, these could be an interesting place to start. Or, if you wanted to do a super hero nursery in a mid-century home these could give you a perfect mid century modern color palette.

I also ran across a comic book color chart from the modern age of comics, after they switched to Pantone coloring. 

If you are going to do a super hero nursery, this will give you the perfect paint colors, especially if you use Pantone paints.

Orignal Eames Chair Colors

This has been out since 2009, but somehow I missed it till today. In case you missed it too, here are all the original Eames fiberglass colors in one jazzy video.

If you don't have a minute to watch the video, the colors are: Olive Green Dark (OG), Ochre Light (OC), Raw Umber (RU), Seal Brown (SB), Red Orange (RO), Navy Blue (NB), Lemon Yellow (LY), Greige (GR), Parchment (PR), Sea Foam Green (SF) and Elephant Hide Grey (EG).

Now if I could just find a chart that converted all of these to paint colors, I would never question what color my walls should be again.

Mid-Century Paint Colors from England

If you happen to be in England and looking for mid-century paint colors, Little Greene might just be the place. They've researched and done paint analysis on historic properties from the 1950s to accurately recreate a line of mid-century paint colors.

There are only eight colors, but they're pretty outstanding. They're a little richer and brighter than most of the American mid-century paint colors I've seen.

I really like the Canton and think it would look great in a mid-century modern kitchen.

And if you're in America, it looks like Little Greene has distributors here, but I'm not sure the availability of specific colors. If you like what you see though, it'd be worth a phone call to one of them.

Mid-Century Modern Nursery Paint Colors

I wrote about Dunn-Edwards for their mid-century modern color palette trends. But they also have mid-century modern colors for nurseries. They're a little darker, earthier and more subtle than their other mid-century modern paint colors and they'd be great for a boy's or girl's room.

I think nursery they have set up in the photo is pretty spectacular — new modern crib, vintage rocker the looks comfortable enough to fall asleep in, mid-century clock so you can keep some semblance of time and some clean, modern shelving to keep things off the floor. It's mid-century and modern in harmony, which is exactly how Dunn-Edwards describes this paint line:

Influenced by the resurgence of mid-century design, this look uses natural woods and textures with pop of bold color. Materials include organic cottons, bamboo flooring and bedding and eco-friendly finishes. Furnishings are clean lined and incorporate a sculptural, minimalist feel.

Mid-Century Modern Color Palette Trends

I came across the the 2013 Dunn-Edwards color chart and design trends report (warning: pdf link). The report is broken into four categories: RE-invented, RE-newal, Re-imagined and RE-vival. The RE-vival section is pretty much a cheat sheet on how to use mid-century modern colors.

The inspiration is, "A re-birth of midcentury modernism is simmering in the Southwest" and people like A. Quincy Jones, Donald Wexler and Joseph Eichler all get name checked. And there's the required hat tip to Mad Men as well.

Once you get past the philosphy you can dive into the actual mid-century modern color palette, which "showcases a sense of play that pervades the historical senses of the Bauhaus to Mid-century to Memphis."

First there's, the full set of the 2013 mid-century modern house colors

Then an smaller interior mid-century color palette

And a few mid-century modern home exterior paint colors

They're all pretty standard as far a mid-century house colors go, muted tones as a base, in this case mainly earth tones, with a nice big pop of color as a highlight. My favorite combination – white and gray with a pop of blue – even makes an appearance in the mid-century color palette on the first page.

Mid-Century Modern Color Trends

The first time I heard the name Doty Horn was in this episode of Off Book.

Doty was the Director of Color and Design at Benjamin Moore for seven years but has since moved on to open her own color forecasting and color marketing company, ColorVoyant. Two years ago she had some interesting things to say about the resurgence of mid-century desgin and space age that hit right on the head of mid-century modern.

For 2013, ColorVoyant is predicting something they call "Modern Primitive" which is a bridging of old and new, of traditional craft and modern technology. It's a trend I really hope is true because I've been dealing with that for a while — trying to fit modern speakers into a well-crafted mid-century cabinet, finding traditional media center that my modern TV will fit on, etc.

Taubmans Mid-Century Paint Ad

I'm falling in love with vintage ads by Taubmans paint. First there was the Taubmans Revelite Festival Pink paint ad and now this one, which has more copy than any other paint ad I've ever seen (and I know a few things about copywriting). I'm still amazed that paint companies advertised so heavily in black and white media, but I guess that's what all the content tries to make up for.

Mid-Century House Paint Colors from House & Garden

The September 1948 cover of House & Garden has a pretty outstanding collection of mid-century colors for painting. 

The list of their mid-century paint colors includes: geranium red, sweet pink, stone gray, kingfisher blue, purple heather, sprout green, citron yellow, brick, avocado green, French blue, sandalwood  bright navy, quartz pink, charcoal purple, mustard, forest green, copper, madera, parchment, bracken green, flame and willow.

I'm a fan of the stone gray and kingfisher together, but perhaps I'm a little biased.

Dulux Super-Latex Mid-Century Paint Ad

There have been a couple of proud gentlemen who selected Dulux. And here's the mid-century paint ad that would have brought those gentlemen (and the paint cards they adorn) to your home. Inside or outside, it only took 20 minutes to dry (if the ad it to be believed). That is something to be proud of.

Berger Breeze Mid-Century Paint Colors

Here's a nice color-coded version of a mid-century paint card. From pinks to lilacs (for the adventurous types) to gray and green mid-century house colors (for the more modern minded), it's all covered. The bottom of the card says these are both interior and exterior paint colors, but these days, I'd expect these types of colors in the living room or den, not the front porch.

Our Atomic Ranch Front Porch through the Years

Out little atomic ranch front porch has gone through a lot of transitions over the last 20 or so years.

Sometime in the early 1990s (from what I can gather)

Sometime in the early/mid 2000s

And now in the 2010s

I think it's made the transition through the ages nicely. And I'm pretty happy with where it's at now. The one thing we still might change is the porch light. The globe light that got replaced before we moved in looks pretty sweet.