Front door painted in Maastricht Blue linseed oil paint - but perhaps it's blue... or black
DEAR READER: note that this blog post used to be about Oricalcum Amsterdam Green, but turns out I mixed up the tester pots and it's actually Maastricht Blue. Must have been distracted. To see what it looks like now visit this post:
Which colour to paint our front door? This question has a tentative answer.
Yesterday, I unpacked a tester pot of Oricalcum Maastricht Blue. Just wanted to apply a tiny bit, to see if it could be a solution.
It always amazes me how nice linseed oil paint is to work with. It's like giving the timber a nice backrub with relaxing massage oil. It seeps into all nooks and crannies, the wood soaking it in. You can almost hear it go 'ahhhh, nice'.
But back to the paint. So I like it. It's both green and blue. A dark, elegant shade of green/blue that sets off the stained glass and brass door furniture very well. So I continued to paint. I used about two thirds of a tester pot size for the door.
While I was at it, I remembered that linseed oil paint is also good for painting on external plaster, so I also applied the linseed paint to the plaster in the porch. The material on the lower half is something between plaster and stone. I could never quite work out what it was, but it did take the paint wonderfully.
The decorative plaster is damaged. I agonised for years about how to repair it, but now just painted over it. I'm hoping the linseed will help conserve and solidify it for now.
Here's the intermediate result: one coat of Maastricht Blue linseed paint on door and porch walls.
The other half came home and almost had a heart attack (I did send a text to warn him, but it seems too late). He thought it was black! Hmm. My sister in Germany thought it was blue. Reminds me of the story of the dress that went viral a while ago.
We'll see if he comes round to liking it. I had tested lighter shades of green, and most opinions veered towards Oricalcum Copenhagen Green. I'd always looked for something darker though.
P.S.
The OH wanted the door greener. So I painted it over with green. Then he didn't like it. So I painted it over with Maastricht Blue again, but mixed a little Amsterdam Green in, to make it a little greener. Ahh, we do like the Dutch.
