Vintage paint colors are a big issue for virtually everyone, so I’ll start out the new year with these 1950s and 1960s retro paint colors scanned directly from a vintage Sears Harmony House brochure that I bought recently. The scanner does a good job on most of the colors, with the dark pinks and reds only a little off. While these have some similarities to the Sherwin-Williams Suburban Modern palettes, there are many more choices. Look, for example, at Malibu Peach in the upper right — it’s perfect!
This chart is also great because it shows wood stains. No year printed on the piece, but I’ll estimate late 50s.
I’ve kept the actual color chart, below, sized as large as possible. For those of you on Internet Explorer, it probably looks funny in the main view – slides off the screen to the right. Just click once the image in a new window, twice to enlarge it further. I’ve also included the thumbnail to the left – sometimes this opens largest for best possible viewing, it seems. Note, this blog is best viewed in Firefox/Mozilla.
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This is positively eerie, but I’ve just spent the past few days searching the web frantically for some 50s color palettes! And then here you are, Pam, to the rescue.
I got some advice from a friend who is an interior decorator; she advised me to paint my kitchen walls either a tomato or coral red, and that it would make my cabinets pop. (I was lamenting about my cabinets again.)
And then here you come again! In the top advertisement “Enjoy a New Color Thrill” (yeah, baby), there are my cabinets in the little inset picture of the kitchen. So I guess they do “go” with a 50s kitchen. (Remember I was lamenting a while back about the stupid mistake I made in liming my cabinets in the mid-90s?) And then I re-checked your Sherwin-Williams entry and found the perfect color for the walls—Caribbean Coral (an exterior color).
So, all I can say is thanks!
Hey, no problem, Femme 1. I actually have used Caribbean Coral – in my guest room / husband’s home office. It is a wonderful color! By the way, I’ve found that several retro renovators and I are on the same Twilight Zone continuum – glad to add you to the club!
Dear Folks,
I would like to know if there is anyway to get an earlier stain fromsears reproduced. I do not know if you used another company to make it. It is called Cherry Mahogany and it maytches most Cherry cabinets I have come across. I had a small amount left and I had to use it to match the trim in my litchen to my cabinets. Please let me know if there is list of colors that I could take to either my nearest store or paint shop for a reproduction of this color.
Thank You,
Jay T