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Connecticut Old House, old homes, period design, antiques and folk art. Home of the most complete directory of suppliers and services for owners of old homes in Connecticut.

WHAT’S NEW AT OLD VILLAGE PAINT?

SHELLAC IS BACK
There is renewed interest in Shellac as a good tool for wood finishing. Shellac is the natural excretion of lac insects on trees found in India and Thailand. When removed and refined, it becomes a truly environmentally safe Interior varnish.

Old Village packages Shellac in lined quart tin containers about six ounces.

Why Old Village Paint?

The Old Village Paint family has been making paints since 1816. They still make paint the same way they did back then. Every colour is made in the old-fashioned batch system. Just like a batch of cookies or a dye lot of yarn, Old Village Paint makes up a batch of New England Red. The batch number will be stamped on the label.

1709 Pelatiah Leete House at Guilford in its russet coat of Old Village Paint.

In their 1956 book, A Guide to Early American Homes North, Dorothy and Richard Pratt wrote, “The rosettes that decorate the doorway of this house were meant to insure that no harm should come to the dwelling—and no harm ever has. It is one of the finest here of its time, with massive beams, lamb’s-tongue-chamfered corner posts, a studded door with a wooden latch, and old cupboards and chests of Guilford cabinetry. Primitive interior woodwork was never in Connecticut finished with greater care and taste.”