Color Me Mine
So today as Mr. Personality and I were painting with washable (of course!) tempera paints, I remembered how much I love to color and paint. I have no talent for it whatsoever, I just enjoy looking at colors, mixing them, and seeing the result.
I suppose that if you were to walk into my home, this love of mine would become readily apparent as soon as you walked in the door.
I loathe white walls. For me, white walls are antiseptic, sterile. They convey nothing but bleakness and specifically in my house, a horrendous glare.
When we first saw this place, every vertical surface, including the fireplace mantel, was a stark and unyielding white. I am well aware of the trick of painting walls white in order to give the illusion of more space. And seeing as how we bought a house with just a bit over 1100 square feet, I suppose it worked. When our offer was accepted, mentally I said, that white's gotta go, or I can never live there. My first order of business before moving in was to paint everything that I could in the time frame that I had.
So I took a week off of work, and my father, who was consulting at the time, offered to pitch in and help. Hubba-hubba being in law school, was unable to contribute. But that was ok, because the color task was mine.
My kitchen I decided to paint a deep, rich blue. Nothing says homey to me like a blue kitchen. My decor is not country, but what I will call comfortable. Or perhaps it's just cheap crap, but I like it all the same.
Our living room and main hallway are taupe. So much better than white, especially as it shows off the lovely mouldings around the windows and on the floor that are white. This color somehow manages to be calming and yet vibrant at the same time.
Mr. Personality's room was originally painted a shade of gold, which I instantly regretted the moment we laid roller to wall. That was originally Hubba-hubba's "study" and I wanted a color that was relaxing and wouldn't give him a headache. Instead, it was decidedly the color of poop gone bad. I had a chance to redeem myself when we repainted it for Mr. Personality's arrival, and it is now a lovely robin's egg blue. But now for some reason, I am itching to paint it darker.
Our bedroom is probably the most bold color choice of the lot, and I went off of Hubba-hubba's input when choosing the color. It is a very deep green color. Not quite forest, yet not billiard table green either. We have a vaulted ceiling in there that goes up probably 25 feet or so, and the sun shines brightly in that room due to our wall of glass, and I wanted something that sort of carried our view out from the room, as well as soaking up some of that sun. Pair that green with the gold velvet curtains and my gold-ish bedding, and the result is quite fetching, if I say so myself.
I have yet to do the guest bathroom or our bathroom, and their whiteness haunts me every time I step into them. My dad and I just ran out of steam, and then less than three months later I was pregnant and on disability, so any more painting was out of the question. I wasn't able to paint Mr. Personality's room, Hubba-hubba and my ever helpful dad stepped in, even having to apply two coats of primer to erase my weird brown. But, I have visions of sunny yellows and mint greens in my head, and they refuse to go away.
I suppose all the colors in my home might give some people a big headache. They prefer white walls in order to use art and furnishings as the focus of color. While I respect that point of view, I could never give up my blues, taupes and greens. With the amount of time I spend in this place, I think if I had white walls I would go nuts.
Ok, more nuts than I already am.
I suppose that if you were to walk into my home, this love of mine would become readily apparent as soon as you walked in the door.
I loathe white walls. For me, white walls are antiseptic, sterile. They convey nothing but bleakness and specifically in my house, a horrendous glare.
When we first saw this place, every vertical surface, including the fireplace mantel, was a stark and unyielding white. I am well aware of the trick of painting walls white in order to give the illusion of more space. And seeing as how we bought a house with just a bit over 1100 square feet, I suppose it worked. When our offer was accepted, mentally I said, that white's gotta go, or I can never live there. My first order of business before moving in was to paint everything that I could in the time frame that I had.
So I took a week off of work, and my father, who was consulting at the time, offered to pitch in and help. Hubba-hubba being in law school, was unable to contribute. But that was ok, because the color task was mine.
My kitchen I decided to paint a deep, rich blue. Nothing says homey to me like a blue kitchen. My decor is not country, but what I will call comfortable. Or perhaps it's just cheap crap, but I like it all the same.
Our living room and main hallway are taupe. So much better than white, especially as it shows off the lovely mouldings around the windows and on the floor that are white. This color somehow manages to be calming and yet vibrant at the same time.
Mr. Personality's room was originally painted a shade of gold, which I instantly regretted the moment we laid roller to wall. That was originally Hubba-hubba's "study" and I wanted a color that was relaxing and wouldn't give him a headache. Instead, it was decidedly the color of poop gone bad. I had a chance to redeem myself when we repainted it for Mr. Personality's arrival, and it is now a lovely robin's egg blue. But now for some reason, I am itching to paint it darker.
Our bedroom is probably the most bold color choice of the lot, and I went off of Hubba-hubba's input when choosing the color. It is a very deep green color. Not quite forest, yet not billiard table green either. We have a vaulted ceiling in there that goes up probably 25 feet or so, and the sun shines brightly in that room due to our wall of glass, and I wanted something that sort of carried our view out from the room, as well as soaking up some of that sun. Pair that green with the gold velvet curtains and my gold-ish bedding, and the result is quite fetching, if I say so myself.
I have yet to do the guest bathroom or our bathroom, and their whiteness haunts me every time I step into them. My dad and I just ran out of steam, and then less than three months later I was pregnant and on disability, so any more painting was out of the question. I wasn't able to paint Mr. Personality's room, Hubba-hubba and my ever helpful dad stepped in, even having to apply two coats of primer to erase my weird brown. But, I have visions of sunny yellows and mint greens in my head, and they refuse to go away.
I suppose all the colors in my home might give some people a big headache. They prefer white walls in order to use art and furnishings as the focus of color. While I respect that point of view, I could never give up my blues, taupes and greens. With the amount of time I spend in this place, I think if I had white walls I would go nuts.
Ok, more nuts than I already am.
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