Exterior Mid-Century Color Palette

Here’s some truly inspiring authentic mid-century paint colors for ranch homes. These “approved” mid-century paint color schemes come from Beatrice West for ranch homes in a PM housing development. I can’t find any additional info about PM, but I was able to track down a bit about Beatrice West.

Google News has a few clippings:

Selected as one of America’s outstanding women in the First Edition of Who’s Who of American Women, Beatrice West is a color consultant and designer of wide achievements. 

She is a color consultant and color stylist for home furnishings and building products, plus interior designer for commercial, institutional and residential clients. 

Architecturally trained at the University of Texas, Miss West has received nation-wide acclaim for aesthetic advancement of the American home. She is a pioneer in the color planning of mass housing developments and has color styled more than a million and a half homes.

And an article where Beatrice West “authorizes” rich mid-century modern paint colors for modern homes. The mid-century modern colors she specially calls out are spruce blue, soft canary, pumpkin, driftwood gray and light pink. 

For the body of a mid-century home, she suggests pebble, gray, driftwood and spruce blue because they are “long-lasting body colors that fit almost any surrounding.” For accent colors she suggests limiting to shutters, window boxes and doors and making them brighter and lighter than the color of the house. Specifically she mentions modern paint colors such as citron, poppy and peacock.

Beatrice West definitely knew how to put together an interesting mid-century modern color palette. I think any of the mid-century color palettes above could easily be stolen for your next mid-century exterior paint job, especially if you have a ranch home.