Before The Spectrophotometer: The Lost Art Of Hand-Mixing Paint Colors
Photo by Kelly
Picture this: It’s 1947, and you step into the local hardware store in downtown Stamford. A bell jingles above the door, the air thick with the mingled scents of linseed oil, sawdust, and metal shelving. Behind the counter stands Mr. Smith: sleeves rolled, apron dusted with a rainbow of pigment.
You carefully unfold an envelope holding a fleck of chipped trim from your New Canaan dining room and slide it across the worn oak counter.
“Need a gallon of this,” You say.
Mr. Smith squints, holds the chip up to the light, and nods. He pulls down a jar of red oxide, spoons pigment into a can of white base, and stirs with a practiced rhythm. A dab goes on a card. He waves it in the air, eyes narrowing.
“Too warm,” He mutters.
A pinch of lampblack. Another stir, another dab. Slowly, the shade comes alive.
There’s no scanner, no barcode, no machine whirring in the background.
Just craft, chemistry, and intuition.
For much of the 20th century, this was how homeowners in Fairfield County—and across America—matched paint colors: not by formula, but by feel.
Pigments and Base Paints: A Painter’s Early Toolkit (Pre-1920s)
Before ready-mixed paint cans lined the shelves, painters worked like alchemists. They bought dry pigments—powders of earth oxides, umbers, siennas, lampblack from soot—by the sack. These were stirred into linseed oil, milk-based casein, or heavy lead white paint to create usable color.
Imagine a house painter in Greenwich around 1910, out in a backyard with a mortar and pestle, grinding pigments while children peeked curiously from the porch. One scoop of ochre for warmth, a dash of umber for shadow, a bit of lampblack to deepen the tone. Each batch was its own creation, never perfectly repeatable.
It was messy, imprecise, and slow. But it meant every home carried a unique palette: a fingerprint of the craftsman who mixed it.
The Birth of Ready-Mix (1920s–1950s)
By the 1920s, companies like Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore changed everything with factory-mixed base paints. Durable, consistent, and convenient, they took much of the guesswork out of the job.
Yet the final color still depended on the store clerk. Hardware stores stocked tinting pastes—concentrated pigments in small tins—ready to be stirred into a neutral base.
This was the age of the neighborhood paint counter. A homeowner from Westport might walk in with a wallpaper scrap folded in her purse, asking Mr. Smith to “get it close.” He’d dip, stir, dab, and adjust until satisfied.
The process wasn’t exact. The living room wall might dry a shade lighter than the hall, and a future touch-up rarely blended seamlessly. But there was a certain comfort in it — a ritual of trust between customer and craftsman.
Formula Cards and the Shake Machine (1950s–1970s)
By the 1950s, postwar America craved convenience and uniformity. The solution arrived in the form of tinting machines and formula decks.
Behind the counter stood a cabinet of pigment canisters—red oxide, raw umber, phthalo blue, yellow oxide, black. Clerks reached for a deck of recipe cards that read almost like cookbooks:
“1 gallon base: 6 drops Red Oxide, 2 Yellow Oxide, 1 Black.”
Pigments were dispensed into a can, then clamped into a shake machine. The rattling echoed through the store, kids watching with fascination as the whole contraption shook violently for two minutes straight.
For towns like Riverside and Darien, this was the heyday of the suburban paint job. Families freshened up their Cape Cods and Colonials in “Skyline Blue” or “Colonial White” — colors meant to look the same whether you lived on a cul-de-sac in Wilton or a shoreline home in Rowayton.
Consistency was the goal, though in truth the results still shifted with drying time and sheen. But the shake machine gave paint the sheen of modernity.
The Dawn of Computer Matching (1980s–1990s)
By the 1980s, hardware stores and big-box chains introduced spectrophotometers: computer scanners that could “read” a sample and generate a pigment formula.
Suddenly, color matching became a science.
Homeowners marveled at the technology. Imagine a Westport family walking in with a scrap of fabric or a paint chip. The clerk pressed it against the scanner’s eye, tapped a button, and the machine calculated a formula precise to the drop. The pigments were dispensed automatically, the can shaken, and voilà — a gallon of paint that matched their fabric nearly perfectly.
It felt like magic. For the first time, a living room wall painted in 1987 could be touched up in 1995 without looking patched or faded.
Of course, even the machines weren’t flawless. Light, texture, and finish still shifted outcomes. But the reliance on a clerk’s squint and intuition was gone.
What We’ve Gained (and What We’ve Lost)
Today, paint matching is astonishingly accurate. A fleck of plaster from a century-old Colonial in New Canaan can be scanned and reproduced in a matter of minutes. Touch-ups blend invisibly. Renovations are seamless.
But there’s a trade-off. The hand-tinted paints of the past carried imperfection. Rooms glowed differently in morning light versus evening. Walls took on personality as pigments shifted slightly from one batch to another.
Those inconsistencies weren’t flaws…they were character.
They gave a home individuality.
In our quest for precision, we’ve gained uniformity. But we’ve lost the little fingerprints of craft that once lived in every gallon of paint.
Why This Story Still Matters
Today, homeowners can bring a fleck of plaster or a favorite fabric to a paint store and have it matched within minutes. But once that gallon of paint leaves the counter, the real work begins.
At Stanwich Painting, we focus on what machines can’t do: the trained eye, the preparation, and the craftsmanship that make color live beautifully on your walls. We understand how undertones shift in a Riverside living room’s afternoon sun, or how a warm neutral changes character in a Greenwich kitchen at night.
Because while color formulas provide consistency, it’s the painter’s skill that gives them soul.
Closing Reflection
So yes, once upon a time, you really did walk into your neighborhood hardware store with nothing more than a fleck of paint in your pocket. And yes, the man behind the counter—sleeves rolled and stir stick in hand—really did mix you a gallon by eye.
It wasn’t exact. But it was human. And maybe that’s the lesson worth remembering: paint has always been more than color. It’s craft, memory, and story were written onto the walls of our homes, generation after generation.
Bring the Story Home
At Stanwich Painting, we carry that tradition forward with every project. Whether you’re refreshing a single room or restoring a historic home, we approach each space with the same care and attention that once defined the craft.
Call us at 475-252-9500 or request a free consultation to bring timeless color and craftsmanship into your home.
References & Further ReadingHistory of Pigments & Hand-MixingPrehistoric and historic use of natural pigments like ochre, umber, and carbon black: minerals used since prehistoric times for paint and decoration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PigmentEarly pigment preparation methods—painters mixing their own color: Seymour Arthur Jennings’ 1910 treatise discusses sample cards and mixing methods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_mixing
Rise of Ready-Mix PaintsSherwin-Williams began offering paint usable straight from the can in 1866. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint
Tinting Machines & Recipe FormulasUse of tinting machines and formula decks (e.g., Jotun’s Multicolor system launched in 1976 as part of wider color tinting technology). https://www.jotun.com/ww-en/about-jotun/innovation-and-technology/overview/cases/the-jotun-multicolor-story
Computerized Color MatchingBenjamin Moore’s introduction of one of the industry’s first computerized color-matching systems in 1982. https://www.fineprintnyc.com/printing-news-and-guides/the-art-and-history-of-color-matchingBroader context of digitized color matching’s beginnings: spectrophotometer-enabled color science technologies emerged in the 1970s and ‘80s. https://www.painternearme.com/color-insights-trends/the-evolution-paint
Craft & Human vs. Machine MatchingA modern example from auto refinish illustrates the enduring value of a trained eye. Even with spectrophotometers available, color matching still leans heavily on experience and observation. https://www.wired.com/story/car-paint-colors/