Adding color to the world with paint is a uniquely human activity – one that we’ve been engaging in since prehistoric times! For that and other reasons we think paint and painting are pretty interesting and after reading this list, we think you will, too.

1. About 10% of ALL paint we buy in the US is eventually thrown out, and the majority of that is paint bought for residential projects. That’s more than 60,000,000 gallons down the drain!

2. The oldest house paint was made of lime mixed with milk and sometimes natural pigments. King Tut’s tomb was painted with milk paint! Even the White House was originally painted with a lime-based whitewash.

3. Throughout history a red front door has symbolized many things, from a safe place for travelers to stop for the night to having a fully paid mortgage.

4. House painters and artists alike were once expected to grind their own pigments with a mortar and pestle, which may be why there was a time when only well off people in the US would have had a painted house.

5. The first painters’ union was formed in London in 1502 and was called the Worshipful Company of Painters-Stainers.

6. There tend to be more shades of green than any other in commercially available paint colors because the human eye can distinguish more variations of green than of any other color.

7. In 1940 Canadian Norman Breakey invented the first paint roller. He didn’t profit from it because he never patented it. During World War II, an inventor working for Sherwin-Williams also created a roller brush because the hogs’ hair used for paintbrushes was unavailable thanks to the war.

8. It was the Greek philosopher Plato who discovered that you can mix two different paint colors together to produce a third color.

This story originally appeared in our monthly newsletter, Prime Time by Jerry Enos Painting company in MA – to subscribe, contact us!