Haint it purdy?

Well, it's been a year and a half since I updated my blog.  I guess that's what Facebook will do to you.  Although I really enjoy the bilateral-ness of fb, I miss the 'diary feel' of a blog.   I may make a half-hearted attempt to blog more.  With that in mind, here we go...

Haint Blue Ceiling.

Living in coastal Florida has some awesome advantages.  The weather being incredible for the majority of the year is one of them.  It also has some drawbacks.  For one - Florida is full of bugs.  Although we've had much less concern with mosquitos and the like than we did back home on the Outer Banks of NC, there is an ongoing battle with ants, spiders, wasps, etc.   One of the areas where they show up a lot is on the ceilings of the porches.  Dirt daubers and spiders find refuge up in the corners and since we have very high ceilings in our house AND on the porches - it's not fun getting those buggers down.  Since it's no fun - it gets put off longer than I'd prefer.

Our front porch with it's newly painted ceiling and new light fixture.
Click for larger version

This week, it was time to clean 'em out again PLUS the porch ceiling could use a coat a paint and so I decided to paint the ceiling 'haint blue'.

Jan and I lived in Key West for a few winters and we visit several times a year and it is there that we learned about haint blue porch ceilings.

There's 2 separate and unrelated reasons to paint your porch ceilings this range of blue (haint blue isn't just one single color).

The first (and the reason I used it) is to fool bugs into thinking that it's the sky and thus they are at risk of being spotted by a bird at anytime - thus becoming dinner.   There's some question as to whether this actually works and some say that it used to work - but only because the paint had lime in it (which it no longer does).

The other reason for painting the porch ceiling this color of blue is to ward off evil spirits.  Haint is a variation of the word 'haunt'.  This tradition is one from the old south and is said to have traveled here from Africa with slaves who would paint around their windows and doors to keep evil spirits out of their houses.  Somewhere along the way, painting the porch ceiling this color of blue became part of the spirit-repelling system as well.   I'm not big into the who spirit thing - but Jan is, so she's happy about the color.

So, I went to Home Depot to get some of this blue paint.  No one there had ever heard of such a thing.  Off to Lowes - same result.    I stopped at Ace Hardware on the way to my boat - same result.

After thinking about it, I knew just what to do.  I contacted Strunk Ace Hardware in Key West - a place I'd been in many times - and asked to be transferred to the paint department.   A nice fellow answered the phone and I told him I was in the Daytona area and no one knew anything about the color of paint used on porch ceilings to ward off bugs and evil spirits.  He instantly asked if I had a pencil (I did) and proceeded to tell me it was Benjamin Moore 729  "Jack Frost".   I stopped back by the local Ace Hardware with this info and within 20 minutes I was walking out the door with my newly mixed gallon of 'haint' paint.

After painting the ceiling, I decided we needed a new light fixture, so after seeing the pitiful selection at the local lighting store and both big boxes, I ordered one on Amazon.com - using Amazon Prime to get it here fast and cheap.

I figure in a few months I'll know if it's a wives tale about the bugs.  Not sure how I'm gonna know 'bout the spirits.