Blue ceilings are popular and have been popular in the South for centuries.

And you'll get a different story from everyone you ask about why we do this, most of them having to do with bugs.  Farmers painted their porches blue to keep the flies out of the house; spiders won't spin webs under something the color of the sky. 


“Porch ceilings have always been blue in the South,” says Lori Sawaya, an independent Principal Color Strategist.

“People continue to paint their porch ceiling blue because that's what their grandmother did, and that's what her grandmother did.”


But many Southerners suggest that blue porch ceilings originated out of the fear of haints. Southerners, especially in the area of South Carolina, have a name for the ceiling paint used on porches – the soft blue-green is referred to as “Haint Blue.”

“Haints are restless spirits of the dead who, for whatever reason, have not moved on from their physical world,” says Sawaya.

Haint blue, which can also be found on door and window frames as well as porch ceilings, is intended to protect the homeowner from being “taken” or influenced by haints. It is said to protect the house and the occupants of the house from evil.

When asking the paint guys about it, he said if you're going to do it, any color blue works (in the south, they use a blue-green color called "haint blue", Martha Stewart uses her own "Porch Ceiling Blue"). The best finish on an old ceiling is semi-gloss; high-gloss shows up every little imperfection, and flat won't reflect the light.

So you bet, my grandmother's ceiling was blue, as was here grandmother's. So, I to carry on the tradition of the haint blue ceiling.