what color siding for a wild west structure? (2 pics)

Started by engineerkyle, March 15, 2008, 03:27:28 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

engineerkyle







Started the roof on this a couple days ago. Looks like a lumber stble.

Any suggestions, I was thinking weathered gray, with a little brown, not oxide red, but burnt orange brown under the eaves...

EK

Yampa Bob

Kyle
I forgot to ask you where you live.  Is it like an older sawill or lumber yard.?

I've never seen any structures like that out here, maybe further south. 

Most buildings, including houses, use Propanel metal ridge or corrugated for roofs. Garages, barns, stables and other structures also use Propanel for the side walls.  Colors are solid,  the most popular is mocha tan walls with either dark brown or dark green roofs.   

Older sheds and barns were mostly vertical clap board wood siding, sometimes board and batten, because they are pole structures with horizontally spaced "girts".  Many of these are painted barn red, white, sometimes light gray.  Really old buildings where the paint is wore off will be gray, sorta like driftwood, and rusty streaks running down the sides. from nails that were not galvanized.

Don't know if this helps much

Bob
I know what I wrote, I don't need a quote
Rule Number One: It's Our Railroad.  Rule Number Two: Refer to Rule Number One.

Woody Elmore

Lead paint - white and red, were common in the good old days. The red turned a brown color in the sun. Iron red oxide was a color for boxcars.

Yampa Bob

Back in the lead paint days, it seems the only colors they could produce were black, red, white and grey. Houses were white, barns were red, outhouses were grey, perhaps to "hide" them.  You didn't need to see the outhouse, you could find it in  pitch darkness, just follow your nose.  Been there.    :(

Some people tried mixing the  colors in various proportions, accounting for some strange colors.

Bob
I know what I wrote, I don't need a quote
Rule Number One: It's Our Railroad.  Rule Number Two: Refer to Rule Number One.

grumpy

There used to be paint gypsies that went from farm to farm painting barns and whatever other buildings were in the yard but not the house. I have seen these gypsies up until about 25 years ago.
Their last paint job usually ended up in some nice warm southern state.Their reputation was always suspect . It seemed that when they left your yard something was always missing .
Don :)


Yampa Bob

I know what I wrote, I don't need a quote
Rule Number One: It's Our Railroad.  Rule Number Two: Refer to Rule Number One.

TonyD

WILD WEST? anytown could become deserted over night, I would say 'no paint', like yampa Bob said, the grey of unpainted pine.... google yerself some ghost towns partner...btw- A freind of mine has the paint gypsies do the aluminum coating on his barn roof every 5 years almost to the day- they do a circut, but with mostly repeat customers, they don't advertise much. They are still out there.. up a a ladder, someplace warm and sunny... come to think of it, his wife and a few tools disappeared about that time.....
don't be a tourist, be a traveler. don't be a forumite, be a modeler

Yampa Bob

Notice on bulletin boards.  "Keep the wife, but please bring back my tools"

Bob
I know what I wrote, I don't need a quote
Rule Number One: It's Our Railroad.  Rule Number Two: Refer to Rule Number One.

Paul M.

Quote from: grumpy on March 15, 2008, 02:19:27 PM
There used to be paint gypsies that went from farm to farm painting barns and whatever other buildings were in the yard but not the house. I have seen these gypsies up until about 25 years ago.
Their last paint job usually ended up in some nice warm southern state.Their reputation was always suspect . It seemed that when they left your yard something was always missing .
Don :)

There used to be some that would paint your rook for free, if they could paint "See Rock City [XX] Miles" on it

-Paul
[
www.youtube.com/texaspacific

engineerkyle

There's one of them lazy gypsies at Warhoop's Lumber and Salvage.






I went with green.

EK

SteamGene

Reminds me of the Romanee chicken recipe:
First, you steal a chicken...
Kyle - what is your time frame?  I ask because most of your buildings look steam/transition, yet you have modern diesel and a lot of modern cars.  To me that phone number would look better as - nope - I don't think I can make a word out of ABC/MNO/ABC.
Blair Line makes some Rock City decals.  The barn on the Michael's farm has one.  they were NOT painted by paint gypsies, but my the guy who developed Rock City as advertizement
Gene
Chief Brass Hat
Virginia Tidewater and Piedmont Railroad
"Only coal fired steam locomotives"


Atlantic Central

A few historical and technical facts:

Lead paint is a misnomer created by the PC police - Lead, when it was used in paint is just one ingredient like sugar is in cake. The paint is oil based and contained lead as a pigment binder.

Ready to use paint, which became widely available about the time of the War of Northern Agression (Civil War) has ALWAYS come in a wide aray of colors. Yes, some colors hold up better than others, but there have always been lots of colors available. The house plan books and mail order catalogs of the that time document this for us.

Which leads us to the next false notion, that most houses where painted white. In fact, starting around the 1870, only about 1/3 or less of homes in America where painted white, and those in the Architectural fashion world thought that was too many. Throughout the Victorian Era ( which included about eleven different Architectural styles from the 1870's to 1901) most homes, even modest ones, where painted in bright colors or earth tones in multi color schemes.

The big shift to white did not happen until the Depression - white was cheaper and it was thought unseemly to paint your house bright colors in such a time of dispare. An awful trend we have yet to completely reverse.

Barns are traditionaly red because it does hold up better, but you would be surprised how many where painted other colors. Here in the race horse country of the Mid Atlantic, white or green barns and stables are just as common as red.

Out west, during the westward expansion, paint was a luxury, but as towns prospered, buildings got painted - again, bright or earth tone colors as was the fashion of the day.

Sheldon

SteamGene

EK, the barn is sitting on a piece of syrofoam with some cardboard strips which will eventually be covered with plaster gause and get scenery.   But if you want to see it, I will try.
Gene
Chief Brass Hat
Virginia Tidewater and Piedmont Railroad
"Only coal fired steam locomotives"