What is the history behind painting the front door of your house red?
Question:
Answers:
In China, it's tradition to paint the front door red before the new year, to invite good luck and happiness.
In Catholocism, the red door on a chapel symbolized the blood of christ, and other martyrs, to signify that the ground beyond the door (inside the church) was holy, and a sanctuary from physical and spiritual evils.
In Ireland, front doors are painted red to ward-off ghosts and evil spirits.
People have been painting their doors red for quite some time. I don't think having a red door would necessarily be out-of-context on an older house.
I think there may be other origins of this tradition as well. Russian tradition comes to mind, but I'm not sure...
I'm not exactly sure when it started but I know it is popular among the Asian culture.. and now mainstream America. I just know that is a sign of welcoming and hospitality.
y'know, i've been painting houses 40 years and only in the last couple of years had any call to paint the front door red (or some kind of take off on red). stained most of them, and had a couple of crazy designers demand purple and some prussian blue, and yellow and green and even burnt pumkin, but not red...now all of a sudden it is show stopper red, fireweed red, house of ill repute red, firetruck red, red is in baby, that is the history of red.
the last time i heard the story, it was a painters house and he was trying to determine what color to paint his house.
the painter lived in a neighborhood where all the houses look the same, and he had a hard time getting to the right house after a long hard day at work. so he'd paint his house different from all the others. but the neighbors LOVED his new paint job and new color. so one by one the neighbors all got their houses painted to match. this went on for several paint colors. and the painter still had a hard time finding the right house.
now, it was again time to paint his house. this time, he did not have enough paint to paint the entire house. so he'd use the paint that he had on different sections of the house to decide which color to order.
when he finished with all his colors, he'd had painted the door red and each section of the house was a different color.
he never did end up picking a color but the entire neighborhood liked the painters house so much, he decided to keep the new look - red door and all.
I'm not sure about the red but they say if you want to sell your house, paint your door yellow. For some reason, buyers are attracted to yellow doors.
More Related Questions & Answers...