Color Diary: Blue Porch Ceilings

Notes and snippets for people who love decorating with color. Today, the history behind the tradition of painting porch ceilings blue.

We all love the look of a sprawling front porch or cozy screened-in sunroom off the back of our home, but how can we spruce up this space in a subtle way? Homeowners have been adding a touch of blue paint to their porch ceilings for decades -- and it's not just for a pop of color.

In the South Carolina Lowcountry (where this trend first began), a turquoise, periwinkle or powder blue porch ceiling is said to extend daylight as dusk begins to fall, and many even believe that it helps keep bugs away. However, in the past the main reason people chose pale blues over other hues was to ward off evil spirits, better known as "haints" -- seriously! Hence the reason southerners refer to any pale blue shade used on a house as "Haint Blue."

Where did this ritual come from? Known as the Gullah or Geechee people, the originators of the Haint Blue tradition were descendants of slaves who worked on plantations in South Carolina and Georgia. They were well known for keeping their African heritage alive through passing on stories and the beliefs of their ancestors, including a fear of haunts or haints. The Gullah people believed that these spirits couldn't cross water, so they began creating a mixture of lime, milk and other pigments and used it to paint around every opening into their home. By doing this, they thought that the haints, confused by the watery pigments, would be tricked into thinking they couldn't enter.

Today, this tradition extends far beyond the southern states, bringing a unique pop of color to many of America's porches.

Like the idea, but not sure which hue to choose? Check out a few popular choices for porches:

Clockwise from far left: Aegean Blue, Martha Stewart Living for Home Depot; Artesian Well, Martha Stewart Living for Home Depot; Caribbean Breeze, Benjamin Moore; Constellation, Benjamin Moore;