CDA

Regional Expertise

Historic Charleston Paint Colors

The color traditions that inform how wallcoverings and murals are chosen for historic Charleston interiors.

Charleston's historic color palette — soft haint blues, warm ochres, deep tobacco browns, and muted plaster whites — developed from a mix of available period pigments and the Lowcountry's particular quality of light. These tones remain the backbone against which most wallcovering and mural decisions are made in historic homes today.

When selecting a wallcovering for a historic interior, we typically pull accent tones directly from documented period paint colors already present in the home's trim, plaster, or millwork, ensuring pattern and color feel original to the house rather than imposed on it.

Farrow & Ball's heritage palette is a frequent reference point for Charleston projects specifically because so many of its pigments were developed from historic English and colonial American color research.