A long time ago…. LONG before I had my old country house, or a place to blog about it, long before I had a front porch…. I heard that it was good luck to paint the underside of your front porch light blue.
I was not sure WHY or HOW a color could bring you good luck …..but I used to LOVE to be driving along and see it in action,
“HEY! There’s one of those light blue good-luck front porches!”
AS often happens in my cart before the horse world, there IS actually a name for the light blue front porches…and in fact MANY little legends about why we do the blue.
The BLUE PAINT is actually called
“HAINT BLUE”.
Apparently before you or I or even our parents and probably their great grandparents existed…centuries ago, in AFRICA, CERTAIN tribes believed that painting the underside of your porch blue would ward off the bad spirits…which were called “HAINTS”. OVER TIME… AND AS slaves were brought to this country, and migrated around the United states… the blue porches began to appear, especially in the SOUTH.
OF huge interest to me in my BLUE PAINT COLOR obsessed world – is that the paints were made from natural pigments which varied from place to place so naturally, geographically speaking…..the BLUE itself varied….sometimes it would be an AQUA BLUE…other places a more PERIWINKLE…
…according to one article I read, the Northwestern states tend to lean toward a more periwinkle blue…like the crispyness of a fall morning….while the Southern states are more aqua blue…like underwater blue….
“Haint blue ranges from blue-green to blue-violet but is meant to look like water to fool “spirits” because, as the story goes, they can’t cross over water.
Using HAINT blue on doors, shutters, window trim, ceilings, the whole damn building, can confuse spirits and discourage them from “crossing” into your house”.
We have tried a few different blues on the underside of our porch. It should come as no surprise that I lean toward the more greeny-aqua blues…..I love this one I found on Pinterest..but could not find the source…linky linky linky!!!!
ANOTHER theory, in which I do not believe because it does not seem to work on OUR porch is that Birds and Insects think the blue IS the sky and thus avoid putting their hives and webs and nests in the BLUE SKY PORCH…but our bIrds AND BEES at least are a little too smart for this theory and have made themselves right at home.
I am halfway finished putting a fresh coat of BENJAMIN MOORE ‘BIRD’S EGG” ON our porch…I do it, because it is pretty and makes me smile…and in does look like the sky and sometimes, at just the right time of day in just the right weather, and at just the exact right angle….the porch and the sky are the exact same color…and it is a thing of beauty.
B&B Paints in Savannah sell “Haint Blue.” (Benjamin Moore)
Love haint blue porch ceilings! I grew up in my parents house, which is over 100 years old in rural northwest Florida. My great-grandfather purchased it when he moved to the area from South Carolina. We don’t know who painted the ceilings blue originally, but my parents just re-painted them! They’re awfully pretty, even if they don’t really keep the haints away!
Natalie
oystersandpearls.net
Living in the South, we naturally have a blue porch ceiling! As you said, there are many legends as to why Southern porch ceilings are always painted blue, one of which is that it repels insects and prevents wasps from nesting {according to this particular legend, it’s because the little pests mistakenly believe the blue ceiling is actually the sky}.
Click the links below to view our porch ceiling:
http://pinterest.com/pin/49891508345040699/
http://pinterest.com/pin/49891508345040704/
wonderful post! we have a ‘haint’ porch ceiling and I adore it. I always heard that birds would not nest in the rafters because it appeared to be sky …. myth only!!! THEY NEST, boy do they nest!
I live in Michigan and the underside of The Grand Hotel’s porch (largest in the world I do believe) on Mackinac Island is painted the most turquoise/aqua blue. In fact, Valspar has a paint color called Grand Hotel Mackinac Blue: http://www.myperfectcolor.com/en/color/90321_Valspar-5007-9A-Grand-Hotel-Mackinac-Blue
Benjamin Moore Yarmouth Blue…..and it helps with spiders, of which we have a ton this year.
Such a wonderful article! Now I’m always going to be on the lookout for blue-ceiling porches.
What a cool story! I don’t have a front porch but I have a mini entryway. I’m thinking it still counts and I should paint the underside blue for sure.
Do you remember design guru Kitty Bartholomew? She was a firm believer in painting interior ceilings light blue!
Love this article…and “haint” blue porch ceilings! I fell in love with them when my hubby and I moved to Beaufort, South Carolina. We took a history class on Gullah Culture (Gullah Island is near there…the course teachers also had their own show later on Nickelodeon…Gullah Gullah Island). Until the 1960s, the waterways were the only way to get to Gullah Island. A researcher did a study on the Gullah natives language, and it very closely stilled resembled the African language that their distant relatives had used. Many of the legends had been handed down, like those about the “haints”. I now live in the Midwest, and have no front porch, but maybe some day…Your story brought back wonderful memories. Thanks! 🙂
Thanks Jen, I love this story about Gullah island and my kids used to watch it!
For lack of a proper porch on our current home, we will paint the ceiling in our master bedroom our choice of “haint blue”, so we can pretend we are sleeping on a porch. Hope it gives us a summery, outdoorsy feeling all year long!
I hink sounds ovely! Please send me a photo when you are done!!!! Thanks for stopping by.
Just did our boathouse ceiling “haint blue”…so many compliments!! 🙂 ALL of our porch ceilings are “haint blue.” It just seems….right. franki
THANKS FRANKI..I would love to see a photo! It sounds beautiful! Thanks for stopping by!
[…] I have 1/2 way painted the HAINT BLUE ceiling (read more HERE). The ladder and the paint have sat waiting for me to finish since before we left for […]
[…] Blue”, which is a couple hits darker than the “BIRDS EGG” which I have on the Haint Blue Porch Ceiling. The consensus was that the new color brightened up the front porch…but one commenter, who […]
The haint blue paint of the past was a milk paint that contained lye in it. That was the reason it was said it also repelled bugs and birds, the color only fools Haints. This was very popular with the Appalachia Celts (Granny Witches) but they painted all ceilings of the home.
Thank you for your insightful input!!!!
I absolutely loved learning about the backstory of Haint Blue in this great post! I am in the process of a major remodel and will definitely be painting my porch ceilings Haint Blue now. 🙂
Thank you Cinde…I just finished RE reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” and had not remembered how often the children referred to the “Haints”…like boogeymen…SO very southern because so much of the culture was inspired by the african american culture which in turn became southern traditions…thank you for stopping by!
[…] MONDAY MAKEOVER – “HAINT” PORCH CEILING BLUE […]
[…] MONDAY MAKEOVER – “HAINT” PORCH CEILING BLUE […]
[…] MONDAY MAKEOVER – “HAINT” PORCH CEILING BLUE […]
In process of painting my porch ceiling SW Drizzle and I love it. Don’t know what took me so long.
Life is funny that way..sometimes the biggest changes involve the smallest adjustments!
I bought a house in Colorado built in 1920. I have just returned from Charlottesville Va and love the history in that area. I am going to be repainting the house in more colonial colors especially the roof of the porches that are currently just stained. The original h house was one bedroom, bath, kitchen and living room. A sunroom/ dining room was added on the rear. The steps to the basement are cinder block walls on the right side and concrete steps. That area is part of the sun/ dining room. An addition was added to the left that now is a family room and the second bedroom in the 70s. There is also a porch off the family room. I am wanting suggestion s on wall and ceiling colors. All are rather neutral , pale green for the most part. Want the more colonial color ideas. Thank you.
My Yankee mother told me that the Victorians painted their ceiling porches blue because even on a gloomy or rainy day the house would get a sense of a blue sky inside..thus cheering things up..They built such tall windows with transoms..my late mother would have preferred the “haint” story much more..and it is more likely the truer origin of the practice…A pale aqua for ceilings even inside the house has always been my favorite..proceeding next week…Here in the High Desert in California I always yearn for the ocean..Haint ceilings will help