Monday, January 17, 2011

Painting

I used to love to paint.  I painted everything: chairs, tables, an innumerable amount of craft projects, playhouses for the kids, the mailbox, even the kitchen garbage can (That may have been going too far..)Once  I  painted cute little stepping stones with winding ivy all over my front porch.  I thought it turned out adorable- the teenage boy across the street wandered over, took a look, and asked me why I'd just spent 2 days painting potatoes on my porch...sigh...  Then I moved on to bigger projects- painting the boys room like a medieval castle and  Andreas room like a garden bouquet. One bathroom became a springtime retreat with a sky blue ceiling and wispy clouds, a white picket fence and flowers, birds and bugs.  Another bathroom became an Under the Sea Adventure complete with bubbles, shells, anemones and everybodys favorite clown fish- Nemo and his friends. 

Then it came time to put our house up for sale.  In the name of creating a neutral, buyer friendly home, all traces of creativity were erased and all the walls were to be painted white...blah.  I drove to Home Depot and purchased a five gallon bucket of neutral eggshell colored paint.  After loading it into the trunk along with all the painting supplies, new garbage cans, new outdoor mats, and other "curb appeal" paraphernalia I headed home.  It probably would have been a good idea to have unloaded the trunk when I got home, but I didn't.  This proved to be a disastrous flaw.

Later that day my husband took my car to run an errand.  He returned home shortly with a look of outrage on his face.  "Why was there a 5 gallon bucket of paint in the trunk?" he asked through tight lips and clenched teeth.  "We need it to repaint, silly!" I replied. ""But why was is in the trunk???" Now , I'm a pretty perceptive person, and it was rapidly becoming clear to me that there was a problem with the paint.  I followed him out to the driveway where the trunk was open, providing a magnificent view of the paint spattered trunk and all its contents.  "Oooops....."I  softly whispered.  "I guess I should have gotten that out of there..."

After much ado the trunk was restored to some semblance of functionality.  But I think Brandon was scarred from the event. Whenever he is driving my car and hears something rolling around the trunk (which is pretty much always as I keep filled water bottles back there) he turns to me, tightens his lips, and asks: "Do you have paint in trunk?"

After living in our new house for the past 3 years with its very neutral, very plain walls, I finally decided to break back into the world of color slowly.  After a trip to Ace Hardware I started the process of taping, covering (a great use for that leftover Christmas wrapping paper!), priming, cutting and rolling our master bath.  It is now a lovely shade called Lorelei (a light mossy green) and looks fabulous.  And I made sure to seatbelt the paint can in for the ride home!
Confession: This is not my bathroom!  But isn't it pretty?  :) 
Mine is  this color however!

2 comments:

  1. Haha I was confused there for a second until I read the caption under the picture:) Thought you had done a bit of remodeling since I was there. I do love this color though! I wish we owned our house so that I could paint it cute colors besides boring white in EVERY room!

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  2. Oh my gosh! That is something that would happen to ME. Did all 5 gallons spill? I wish that was a photo of my bathroom too.

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