Though consumer house paints and coatings decorates our homes and protects their surfaces from rot, drying, and the elements, we often take it for granted. But this unassuming product does in fact have a long and interesting history which cannot be easily summarized. A brief history, however, is better than no history at all. In order to expound on house paint’s evolution, we have presented some snapshots to illustrate our human needs of security and beauty in our dwellings.
In the beginning, cavemen would mix certain substances with animal fat to create paint; they would then use the paint to draw pictures and add colors on their walls. Red and yellow ochre, hematite, manganese oxide, and charcoal were all employed as color elements. Ancient Egyptian painters mixed an oil or fat base with color elements like semiprecious stones, ground glass, earth, animal blood, or lead around 3150 B.C. White, black, blue, red, yellow, and green were their hues of choice. At the turn of the 14th century, house painters in England created guilds, which established standards for the profession and kept trade secrets under lock and key. By the 17th century, new practices and technologies were shaking up the world of house paint even more.
In this time of constantly documented celebrity misconduct, some may not even remember what modesty was. In the 17th century, the Pilgrims, who populated the American colonies, believed that modesty was the avoidance of all displays of wealth, joy, or vanity. Even painting your home was deemed very immodest and highly sacrilegious. In 1630, a Charlestown preacher ran afoul of the growing society’s mores by decorating his home’s interior with paint; he was brought up on criminal charges of sacrilege.
Even colonial Puritanism, however, failed to silence the demand for house paint. Anonymous authors wrote “cookbooks” that offered recipes for various kinds and colors of paint. One popular process, known as the Dutch method, combined lime and ground oyster shells to make a white wash, to which iron or copper oxide – for red or green color, respectively – could be added. Colonial paint “cooks” also used items from the pantry, including milk, egg whites, coffee, and rice, to turn out their illegal product.
From the 17th century until the 19th, oil and water were the primary bases for paint production. Each naturally held some colors more than others, and there were differences in the durability and coat, depending on which mixture was used. Water-based paints were used for ceilings and plaster walls, and oils were used for joinery. Some homeowners wanted walls that looked like wood, marble, or bronze and ceilings that resembled a blue sky with puffy white clouds. Painters of the time routinely fulfilled such requests, which seem fairly eccentric by today’s standards. Even in 1638, a historic home named “Ham House” in Surrey, England, was renovated.The multi-step process involved the application of primer, an undercoat or two, and a finishing coat of paint to elaborate paneling and cornices throughout the house. At this point in paint’s evolution, pigment and oil were mixed by hand to make a stiff paste – a practice still employed today. Well-ground pigment tends to disperse almost completely in oil. Before the 18th century, hand-grinding often exposed painters to an excess of white-lead powder, which could bring about lead poisoning. Despite its toxicity, lead paint was popular at the time due to its durability, which remains difficult to equal. Painters did eventually add air extraction systems in their workshops to reduce the health risks occurring from grinding lead-based pigment. The United States finally banned the usage of lead in house paint in 1978.
During the 1700s, paint production underwent a transformation. In 1700 in Boston, MA, the first American paint mill opened its doors. The Englishman Marshall Smith in 1718, created a “Machine or Engine for the Grinding of Colours,” which created a competition between countries to grind pigment more effectively. In 1741, the English company Emerton and Manby publicized the “Horse-Mills” that it used to grind its pigment, thus allowing them to sell paint at unbeatable prices. Owner Elizabeth Emerton bragged: “One Pound of Colour ground in a Horse-Mill will paint twelve Yards of Work, whereas Colour ground any other Way, will not do half that Quantity.”
The turn of the 19th century brought about the reign of steam power. In fact, most paint mills during this time period ran on steam. Nontoxic zinc oxide became a usable base for white pigment, thanks to the Europeans, during this time; it came to the US in 1855.
By the end of the 1800s, roller mills had started to grind pigment as well as grain, and the guild system that had organized English house painters for centuries became a network of trade unions. Mass production of paint was once only a dream, but the production of linseed oil, a cheap binding agent that protected wood as well, made that dream come true.
Decorating a home with paint became extremely popular in the 19th century. Paint did, after all, make surfaces easily washable and sealed in wood’s natural oils; in doing so, it kept walls from being too wet or too dry.
Sherwin Williams, a giant behemoth in the paint world today, was founded in 1866. The company was the first maker of ready-to-use paint; its original product, raw umber in oil, debuted in 1873. Shortly after, cofounder Henry Sherwin invented a resealable tin can.
Benjamin Moore, one of Sherwin Williams top competitors, was born in 1883. Twenty-four years later, it added a research department powered by a single, lonely chemist. Ever since, Benjamin Moore has contributed amazing discoveries in paint technology, but its color-matching system, unveiled in 1982 and wholly computer-based, is unmatched paint is still lucrative today; around $20.9 billion in paint was sold in 2006.
House paint is most often applied to the surface of a residence, but artists have also used it on their canvases. John Frost, an American painter who began his career in 1919, employed the use of house paint to paint the history of his hometown, a tiny village called Marblehead in Massachusetts. Picasso and many of his contemporaries used it as well. Even some modern artists, like Pollack admirer Nik Ehm, experiment with house paint as a medium.
In the middle of the 20th century, necessity became the mother of invention for the increasingly innovative paint industry. World War II led to a dearth of linseed oil, so chemists combined alcohols and acids to make alkyds, artificial resins that could substitute for natural oil.
Today, most house painting paints is acrylic, or water-based, although milk paint, popular in the 19th century for its subtle hues, has become the darling of the sustainability movement thanks to its minimal environmental impact.
seattle paint dealer has origins dating to the industrial revolution.
To be specific, milk paint doesn’t contain volatile organic compounds, commonly known as VOCs. Conventional latex paint, on the other hand, does contain them, which makes it potentially hazardous to humans and pets. If you’re exposed to VOCs for an extended period of time, it could lead to nerve or organ damage, and it may even cause cancer. Thankfully, most paint companies have low or zero VOC paint available. By EPA standards, the term, “zero-VOC,” means that each liter of paint has less than 5 grams of VOCs. Other non-VOC options include clay- and water-based paints. If you have allergies and/or chemical sensitivity, Low VOC Paint are a must. Low VOC paints have great advantages no matter what the circumstances, because their relative lack of odor makes rooms livable faster.
Despite its outward simplicity, paint has adjusted over the millennium to conform to our aesthetic, financial, and health needs. While paint may seem basic, it’s almost miraculous that it can elevate our mood so drastically. Whenever you next pop open a paint can, think about the journey it made to add more beauty and quality to your life.
Stay awhile and monkey around!