Painting our homes is something that we all tend to take for granted. We just head down to the hardware store, choose a shade, and start painting. But do you ever stop to think just why you might be picking a certain colour? In fact, interior painting has a long and rich history, and all the trends of yesteryear have led us to where we are now. As the number one house painters in Brisbane and Sydney, we know an awful lot about the history of house painting – and we thought the time was right to share that knowledge with the world. Come along with us as we take a journey into the depths of the past, and see just how far house painting has come!
Our story begins about 40,000 years ago, with the earliest traces of house painting. This shows that for almost as long as humans have been around, we have felt naturally drawn to decorating our homes in all different colours. Of course, back in those days, people could only decorate their homes with paints made from all-natural materials. Tree sap, soot, and even animal blood appear to have been used by our interior painting forebears- luckily we don’t have to use those materials anymore!
We’re going to make quite a jump in time now, to the early 1200s. it was during this time that the first painters guilds were founded in England. At this time, if you had any sort of profession, then you had to belong to a guild- so this tells us that it was starting to be seen as something more serious than just slapping a coat of paint onto a wall. Between the 1200s and 1400s, house painting as we know it really came into being, and guild members created all sorts of blends for different colours of paint. They kept these secret blends closely guarded, though- if you wanted a certain shade, then only the very best guild painters would be able to provide you with what you were looking for.
It was a very different story over in the Americas, though. The Puritans who settled there looked down on house painting, as they saw it as a kind of arrogant display of wealth. In fact, in 1630, one preacher in Charlestown was even tried for sacrilege, simply for daring to paint the interior of his house! Another problem that house painters faced during this time was the fact that the painters guilds hadn’t quite got the knack for getting paint thick enough to apply in a nice even coat. Their paints tended to be pretty thin, so getting them to stick to the wall could be a bit of a problem!
We hope you’ve enjoyed our history lesson so far. Next time, we’ll take a look at some of the biggest developments in the painting world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to discover how we reached the point we are at today. Be sure to check back in with us then!
