Design With a Dark Side

The toxic effects of lead — which can cause everything from developmental delays and learning disabilities to hearing loss, seizures and death — have been a very big deal for a very long time. Some historians argue that lead-heavy diets and tainted water among aristocrats contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. Contemporary accounts of Renaissance masters like Caravaggio and Michelangelo, in turn, speak of their wasted limbs — a result of the “painter’s disease” they suffered (after licking their brushes and long exposure to the fumes of their lead-based paint). Widespread acknowledgment and full awareness of those effects, on the other hand, didn’t occur until the 19th century — and the United States didn’t ban lead paint for more than a century after that. So, what took so long?

Adding lead to paint accelerates the drying process, it makes painted surfaces more durable when they’re dry and it helps those surfaces resist damage from moisture. Classical artists favored oil paint pigmented with white lead, shipwrights used it to maintain and waterproof vessels, and by the dawn of the 20th century, it was used for everything from homes to children’s toys. That said, it was linked to childhood lead poisoning as early as 1900, European countries began banning it in 1909, and the U.S.-based National Lead Company admitted lead was a poison in 1921. America didn’t follow its Continental neighbors in banning lead paint (which many of them did in 1922) because our lead industry fought tooth and nail for decades to resist regulations of its products and interests.

Baltimore became the first American city to ban lead pigments in 1950, and in 1955, the paint industry adopted a voluntary standard of no more than 1% lead in paint by weight for interior uses. (This was a staggering change: before 1940, interior paints were 50% lead on average). The tide against lead paint was turning, but it turned slowly: a nationwide ban on lead-based paint use for structures built or maintained by the federal government didn’t take effect until 1978. As of 2011, the U.S. Department of Housing and Development reported that an estimated 23 million housing units still have at least one lead-based paint hazard.

If your home was built after 1978, it should be free and clear of lead paint. If your home is older than that, on the other hand, exposure to old lead from chips in existing paint (or renovations that create airborne dust from that existing paint) is a possibility — and you might want to consider hiring a lab to test the paint on your property, determine its composition and minimize exposure to any lead you might find.