Last week my husband said the three most magical words to me.
Yeah, yeah. He said those too. But the other most magical words: “We need new carpet.”
Who CARES if that’s four words. Yesssss! As if I haven’t been dropping hints about this since the DAY WE MOVED IN. This carpet was never my choice. In fact, I’ve pretty much winced in revulsion every step I’ve had to take on it. So. Ugly. But it was in good condition. (Emphasis on was.) So we didn’t replace it right away. I did my best to keep it shampooed and to put down the throw rug under the kitchen table (WHY have light blue carpet in the dining room? I ASK you!)
So. Now, 12 1/2 years and five kids and about 900,000 gallons of red Kool Aid and who-knows-how-many other unfortunate fluid spills later…it’s not light blue. It’s something else. I don’t think there’s a Crayola even in the 128 pack that describes it.
But Gary can SEEEEE now that it’s time! Hallelujah!
UNFORTUNATELY for me, as much as I am desperate for the new carpet, I’m also a realist. The walls (12 years and no fresh coats of paint later, possibly 17 years, since who knows if the former owners ever painted) MUST be painted. I went through the total agonies last week of trying to choose just the perfect color for each wall. It went something like this:
“Um, does this look white to you? How white? Too white? I mean, because we don’t want to go too white, it’ll feel like a hospital room.” Or, on days when I was thinking of other tones and brought home the free quart from Ace on “Free Quart Saturday” in just the PERFECT shade, it went more like this. “Wow, Jen. That’s really dark. If you put that in the hallway, it’ll be a lot like a dungeon. It’s already like the scariest tunnel of fear and darkness there. I won’t be able to walk down the hall to our room if you do that color.”
Fine. Back to white. Or light grey.
So, I bought this putty color. It was in my friend Mary’s house and looked absolutely PERFECT. So, I grabbed a quart of that and started in the girls’ room. Best place to start, since it has the worst walls and is the most out-of-the-way. “Two Turtle Doves” is the name of this shade. I slap it on the walls. It’s kind of dark and dungeon like in the girls’ room, so I assemble the light I got from Ikea and put it in there too, since most of the lightbulbs in the ’90s white and gold ceiling fan are burned out, and when I replace them it doesn’t make any difference.
Two Turtle Doves is fine. It’s not NEARLY as perfect as it was at Mary’s house. But she has fantastic hardwood floors and it’s just all chic in there. Our house is ’90’s-and-yard-sale-tastic. Two Turtle Doves grows on me. But, then I see a blip of paint that hit the cream colored ceiling and it hits me:
I am going to have to paint ceilings.
Have I mentioned my height? Or lack of it? How on EARTH am I going to paint ceilings? Our ladder (it’s pretty high, 6 or 7 feet), will NOT get me up there.
Then I strike gold. I will just repaint the house the same color it is. The trim is already the same color (somebody originally had the same idea I did–just swipe the paint on there and get it over with!) Laziness WINS! As does not having to paint any ceilings. Except maybe over the tiny dots of chocolate milk splashed above the dining room table.
Here’s a pic of my practice-run of painting something for the first time in YEEEEARS:
Girls’ room bookshelf. WAS icky wood-panel laminate. Now kinda cute white with contact paper in the back. Adding 2 more shelves. And books. Lots of books.
So this is what I’m doing while I mull over the newly-minted outline of my rewrite of my WIP about art. I paint. Poorly. And insert photos sideways onto my blog, too.
