Dispatch From New Orleans

New Orleans House Paint Colors: Yellow, Red and White — Broadmoor

Yep, this house sure is an eye-catcher. It's bold and unafraid. As I was snapping photos, the owner came out and I complimented her on the new paint. She said: "Well, we decided we needed a little more color." Indeed. Here's what we've got:

Siding: YELLOW!
Fascia and trim: Red
Railing, window frames, posts and pots: White 

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New Orleans House Paint Colors: Red and Hunter Green — Bywater

Wow! You have stop when you see this house. What makes this charming house so unusual is that only two colors are used. Here's what they did:

Siding, doors, shutters: Red
Quoins, door frames, window frames: Hunter Green 

P.S. I need to get back and photograph the house next door with the yellow shutters!

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New Orleans House Colors: French Quarter

This stucco building on Esplanade Avenue in the French Quarter is so extremely attractive. Strange as it sounds, this home has elements of a fairly typical Victorian color scheme. I could almost eat it. Here are the colors involved:

• Stucco: Terra Cotta

• Shutters: Periwinkle blue

• Columns, window frames, door frames: Ecru

• Column bases: Brick red

• Ironwork: Black

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New Orleans House Paint Colors: Olive Green, Fuchsia, Indigo and More! — Mid-City

Before the paint job, this house was extremely boring (photo below). When I saw it up for sale, I thought: Who would want such a boring house? Then, it got painted by the new owners and WOW! They had vision. Here's what they did:

Brick exterior: Olive green
Fascia: Fuchsia
Windows: Yellow and orange
Door: Fuchsia and Yellow 
Shutters: Deep blue
Ironwork: Purple 
Picket fence: Butter yellow 

Bravo! And thanks for brightening up the neighborhood!

New Orleans House Paint Colors: Pale Blue, Orange, Brown and White — Bayou St. John

This lovely double just off Esplanade is crisp and cheerful. Here's what makes it happen:

Siding: Light Blue
Window and door frames: Reddish Orange
 Trim, Fascia, rafters, corners: Brown
Posts: White 

New Orleans House Paint Colors: Blue, Dark Blue, Cream and Burgundy — Uptown

This is a very pleasing combination. It's complex, but not overly so. Just the right amount of variety without fanfare. You're not showing off, but you're not hiding out, either. Here's what we've got:

Siding: Blue
Shutters: Dark Blue
Fascia, trim, posts, railings: Cream
Window frames, rocking chairs: Burgundy
Door: Wood 

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New Orleans House Paint Colors: Corbels in Uptown

If you've got fancy corbels, you may as well play them up. Here are two samples from Uptown, just off Magazine Street.

Colors: Rust and Butter

Colors: Burgundy and Cream

 

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New Orleans House Paint Colors: Dusty Rose, Hunter Green and Butterscotch — Mid-City

I feel delighted every time I walk past this house. How do people come up with these combinations? And I love the etched-glass door. (Click on image for larger view)

Here's what we've got:

• Siding: Dusty rose
• Porch deck, shutters and mullion detail: Hunter green
• Porch railings, fascia, moldings, window frames and door frame: Butterscotch
• Metal work: Black 

New Orleans House Paint Colors: Periwinkle Blue, Mustard and Custard — Mid-City

This house is blatantly, flagrantly, willfully charming. I'm calling the lighter yellow "custard" just to sound cute, but it's really a sweet, pale creamy yellow. Kinda like custard, actually.

Here's what they did:

Bottom siding and fascia: Periwinkle blue
Bottom window frames, detail on posts and trim: Mustard
Upper siding, posts, porch ceiling, upper railing and details: Custard
Doors: Brown
Ironwork: Black

New Orleans House Paint Colors: Periwinkle Blue, White and Yellow — Lakeview

How can you go wrong with this combination? (click on photo for a larger view)

This lovely raised Creole cottage just off Marconi near City Park is luminous with its periwinkle lap siding, softly yellow doors and bright white trim.

It's simple and stunning.

Siding: Periwinkle blue
Trim: White
Doors: Yellow 
Roofing: Gray 

New Orleans House Colors: Mid-City

House Colors:

Siding: Tan

Trim: White

Window screens: Periwinkle blue

Foundation: Pumpkin

Fencing: Periwinkle blue

Porch Patrol: Pumpkin time in the Big Easy

House colors:

Siding: lavender

Trim: White

Door and shutters: Black

Porch: Gray

Hardware: Brass

New Orleans House Colors: Mid-City

I love this blue double shotgun Victorian. But what really makes it shine is the bright lime green of the chairs and table and the big burgundy pot on top. Who knew that was magic? Here are the colors that make the whole thing happen:

• Siding and attic window frame: Blue

• Door frames, fascia and rickrack trim: White

• Window mullions, trim and bands on posts: Burgundy

• Doors: Natural wood

• Chairs and table: Lime green

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New Orleans House Colors: Lower 9th Ward

This beautiful little cottage is right on the levee in the Holy Cross area of the Lower 9th Ward. The exterior colors include:

• House siding: Bright yellow

• Doors, window mullions and foundation: Pumpkin orange

• Door jambs, door trim, window frames, fascia, and corner quoins: Periwinkle blue

• Steps, cornice above windows: Mint green

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Fleur De Lis: House emblem

Here's a giant cream-colored fleur de lis emblem on the front of a taupe Mid-City double. This is a good sign of New Orleans pride.

New Orleans House Colors: Mid-City

White on white looks pretty good if you've got a near-mansion with a red tile roof, brick or stone work, plus black iron railings. Otherwise, add some color.

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New Orleans House Colors: Lower 9th Ward

Here's another gorgeous renovated specimen in the Holy Cross area of the Lower 9th Ward. This house was originally a double shotgun, and has been converted into a single. It is absolutely gorgeous inside, with high ceilings, beautiful hardwood floors, and a large granite-counter kitchen. The colors used on the exterior include:

• Siding and deck: Taupe

• Shutters (closable during hurricanes): Olive

• Doors and cornice over attic windows: Red

• Trim, windows and corner quoins: Cream

• Porch ceiling: Sky blue

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Porch Patrol: Leafy bricks in Mid-City

This porch near City Park is so appealing with the brick steps, leafy greens, red-painted deck, red shutters, gray siding and wooden doors with glass inserts. There's a baby swing to the left, which makes me think a youngster lives here. The sign inside the glass door says: "Closed for Big Tymers." I have no idea what that means.

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New Orleans House Colors: Lower 9th Ward: Holy Cross

This is supposedly the first Katrina Cottage built in New Orleans after the storm. The plans and materials came from Lowe's and a local contractor working for the Preservation Resource Center put it together. There were great hopes for these little homes as an alternative to formaldehyde-poisoned trailers for quick homes for hurricane victims. But this house only just sold — for under $90,000 — and it's four years after the levees failed. The standing-seam metal roof is awfully cute, though.

The exterior colors on this modest home include:

Siding, porch deck and steps: Tan

Trim and railing: White

Doors and porch ceiling: Bright blue

New Orleans House Colors: Mid-City

In Mid-City, this exterior colors of this lovely home include:

Wood siding: Cream brick-red 

Trim: Butter yellow

Doors: Dark stain

Porch ceiling: Hunter green

Porch light and bench: Black iron

Cat warily watching me and my dog walk by: Black and white

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New Orleans House Colors: Jefferson Parish

Do you love the colors of this house?

August home tour

Perhaps because I grew up in California's San Fernando Valley, where homes older than 1950 are rare, I'm enthralled with the bounty of old homes from the 1880s and beyond in New Orleans. The failure of the levees in 2005 destroyed many of those homes, but plenty remain. Some are loved and cared for. Some neglected. Some abandoned. I fantasize about buying one of these some day, if only for the pleasure of choosing paint colors. And because you can buy a house in New Orleans for around $150,000, the prospect for home ownership is better than where I come from.

This house, crying out for color, is in the Mid-City section of New Orleans. Some areas of Mid-City are what I would call rough, and some are what real estate agents call "coming around." Some have come around.

Here's a "double shotgun" in Mid-City that's getting some color. These are called shotgun houses because they are deep and narrow, generally with one room after another, and theoretically if you fired off a gun at the front door the bullet would go all the way through the house without hitting any walls. I'm loving the old, carved doors on this house, and the Victorian trim. So far, I can see six different colors on this house: gray, dark blue, light blue, maroon, white and yellow (in the sunburst around the attic window).

This double shotgun, also in Mid-City, has three colors — green, cream and maroon — and looks very festive. If this was my house, I'd be tempted to paint the rectangular trim pieces on the corners various colors.

Here's the kind of Mid-City fixer-upper I would find hard to get involved with. You have to know your limits. There might be great historical treasures inside this house, but I'd have a hard time getting past the sidewalk.

Enough of the past, though. Over in the Lower Ninth Ward, prototypes are being built to show the types of homes that can withstand future flooding. In the foreground is a stack of BluWood, which is wood that has been treated to prevent damage from fungus, rot and termites. The house on the left looks to me like it was built new on the spot where an older home washed away when the nearby levee failed. The house on the right is being built by Make It Right, the foundation Brad Pitt is involved with. This house is on pillars and will one day have solar panels. It looks nothing like the traditional New Orleans homes I love. But it will withstand hurricanes and nature better.

Here's another Make It Right home. You kind of wish these new and improved homes could have just a little more of the charm New Orleans is known and loved for. The other Make It Right homes have a contemporary vibe to them, which seems out of place here. I'll keep an eye on these prototype homes for you, and we'll see if some charm gets added in by the time they're finished.