The archive is open to the public Wednesdays, ten to two — bring a chip the size of a dime and we will date your house with you. (555) 041-7262 · shop@sixpennyclapboard.example
The color bank card — 2026 season
Cross-section color match$180 the wall
A scrape the size of a dime, read layer by layer, dated to the year; three chips returned in your light
District commission packet$340 flat
Historic-scheme documentation, material spec and profile drawings, filed to the Fetterling commission’s calendar
Fiber-cement re-side, archive tint$10.90–12.60 / sq ft
5/16″ board, blind-nailed on gauge, factory-primed and site-coated to the matched chip
Paint-grade cedar lap, archive tintfrom $15.40 / sq ft
Western red cedar, two coats brushed linseed enamel in the original scheme
Linseed glaze system, three coats$3.10 / sq ft
The 1911 practice — glaze, enamel, glaze — on wood or cement that wants to breathe
Period casing, sills & shutters$12–18 / lin ft
Profiled off the surviving originals, milled in the shop, hung with the fasteners the commission can approve
The color bank
The card, read beside the wall
The match comes first and the siding second, which is the whole difference between a re-side and a restoration. The scrape tells us the year, the year tells us the pigment — linseed whites before the first war, the pastel interlude after the second — and the tint is mixed against the chip, not against a fan deck. The commission packet is written in their format, so approval is a meeting rather than a negotiation.
1900–1920 — linseed & oxide
The first layers are almost always lead-white linseed over red-oxide barn trim, brushed by a painter who mixed his own. We reproduce the depth with a three-coat glaze that amber slightly on purpose — a bright modern white reads instantly as new, and the commission will say so to your face.
1946–1962 — the pastel interlude
The post-war repaints are the archive’s showpieces: seafoam, dusty rose, pale butter, all in titanium whites that had just arrived. Half the district is quietly wearing a 1953 scheme over an 1911 house, and there is no shame in choosing either year — the chip decides, and both file.
1978–now — factory & tint
The top layers are acrylic over everything, and the newest walls arrive pre-finished. Our tints are matched to the chip and shot as draw-downs — never a screen — because a matched color that reads wrong at 4 p.m. in October is a color that was never matched at all.
Fetterling & Marchbury, 2025 — 2026
Re-sides from the book
Six houses from last season’s book, every one hung to its own dated chip. The camera does not color-correct — the archive does not need the help.
How it goes
From chip to first course
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
Day 0
The scrape
A dime-sized chip off a sheltered wall, read under the shop microscope: every layer measured, dated and photographed. You leave with the year your house chose its color, whether or not we ever hang a board.
Week 1
The chip & the packet
The tint is mixed and draw-downs are shot in your own light at three hours of the day. The commission packet goes in — scheme, material, profile, fasteners — on their form, before their deadline.
Weeks 2–3
Tear-off & close-in
Old siding off a wall at a time, sheathing repaired where a century got in, then house-wrap lapped shingle-style, taped, cap-nailed and flashed at every opening. The house sleeps watertight, every night of the job.
Weeks 3–5
Hang & millwork
Blind-nailed on gauge, 3/16″ butt joints left for sealant, and the period casing milled in the shop goes up beside the field — the millwork is what makes a restoration read restored instead of re-skinned.
Final week
Coat & file
The matched tint goes on in full light — two coats, or three where the scheme calls for the glaze — the warranties are filed, and a fresh chip of your own wall is scraped, dated and added to the book.
Sixpenny, in figures
The commission has rejected two of our proposals in ten years. Sixpenny filed the third — a dated chip, the pigment story, profile drawings — and it passed in one sitting. The house came back the exact strange green it was in 1913, and the neighbors keep stopping to check the archive card in the window.
They found four layers on our scrape and told us the house had been seafoam since 1953 and butter-yellow before that. We chose the butter. The draw-downs came out at dusk as promised, the tint is dead on, and a stranger knocked to ask whether the siding was original. It is not. That is the compliment.
The millwork is the part nobody quotes properly — our casings were rotted and the profile was out of production. They milled it in the shop off one surviving jamb, and the corners now read like the 1926 photograph in the packet. Worth every cent of the period line on the card.
Can you match a color from a photograph?
As a starting point only — photographs lie about color in both directions, and the commission will not accept one anyway. A chip the size of a dime from a sheltered trim board carries the actual pigment layers, and that is what the microscope reads. If no chip survives, we search the book for your house’s year and builder, and the commission has accepted a twin-scheme match four times.
What does the district commission actually require?
A packet: the dated scheme, the material specification, the profile drawings and the fastener schedule, on their form. We write it, file it and attend the sitting. Approval in Fetterling runs one meeting when the packet is complete — the refusals we see are almost always packets assembled from a fan deck and a guess.
Why paint-grade cedar instead of cement in a district?
Both file, and both hang well. Cedar is chosen where the scheme wants a brushed linseed finish and the budget allows it; fiber-cement is chosen where the wall wants to be left alone for thirty years. The chip does not care — the glaze system tints to the same draw-down on either board.
Is the original linseed paint still legal to buy?
The original lead formulas are not, and we would not sell them. The practice survives: a modern linseed glaze system in three coats, tinted with the same mineral pigments, ambers gently the way the old paint did and breathes the way an old wall needs. It is the closest legal cousin, and it is what the 1911 schemes are hung in.
What if the archive has nothing for my house?
Then we build the file instead of reading it — the scrape dates the layers, the style of the casing narrows the builder, and the book’s twin schemes from the same year carry the match. Two of last season’s six re-sides started exactly there, and both packets passed.
The shop line
Scrapes read in the shop inside a week, packets filed to the commission’s calendar, and the book is open Wednesdays whether you are a client or just curious about your own walls.
A color is a date you can see from the street. We are just the shop that kept the calendar.
Book the scrape
Street, town, rough age of the house, and anything you already know about its colors. The $180 match reads your chip under the microscope and dates the layers — do that before you decide anything else on the wall. shop@sixpennyclapboard.example