Saturday, June 13, 2009

Diary of a Bathroom Painter's Wife


1. As a couple, Paul and I have similar design and decorating tastes. Of course he would never willing put his name in the same sentence with the words "design and decorating." He would say, rather, he knows what he likes and doesn't like to see in the house. Four colors will never come from his paintbrush onto these walls: blue, pink, yellow, or orange. The only times he compromised were in 1992 (when Sarah wanted buttercream walls to go with her baby doll wallpaper border), in 1999 when the same child wanted sky blue walls, and in 2006 when she wanted one of four walls in a grapey purple with cobalt trim. He will bend--and break--for that daughter of ours.
2. It takes us a good while to agree on a paint color. When going between his choice and mine, he says, "It's up to you." So I get what I like (or think I'll like). Today it was a color called "Falling Leaves" to match a color in my inspiration piece of art. Turns out "Falling Leaves" appeared to change color on its way home from Home Depot. When Paul slapped on the first few strokes, I thought he'd have a stroke of his own. "Falling Leaves" looked more like "V-8: The Morning After." (I Googled "spilled tomato juice" for an image; whaddya know?)
3. Scott at the local Home Depot should be getting a Customer Service Award if my two cents to the manager has the promised effect. Scott spent at least a half hour tyring to find a cure for the Falling Leaves. God bless him, eight years of paint school training couldn't have prepared him to doctor my diseased color choice. I finally asked him to start over and color match the original swatch of a Lowe's color I liked ("Rustica" by Valspar) but using Behr paint which we love.

4. Dear hubby the painter has applied the first coat. I'm going to slip downstairs and take a look-see. I sure hope my Rembrandt likes Rustica.




3 comments:

Teri said...

That is funny! I have very similar experiences at our house. Ed ususally disappears if I insist on doing the painting.I have a tendency to wear more than I get onto the walls! But the job does get done. You will like the Rustica.It was one of the colors we had picked out for the house. Good luck with the painting.

Anonymous said...

If you want help with that Rustica, I can always use the practice. FYI, when I chose "Cherry Cobbler" and the woman at Home Depot showed me what could much better be described as TeenyBopperFusciaLipstick, she assured me that a few days of drying is required to "set" red. A friend at church says the same. I hope they're right or else I'm going to need a lot of pepto.

Zoanna said...

Jill, you finally commented! I feel so honored. (FYI, folks, Jill is my "baby sister" who has just bought a house with her husband.

Reds are tricky, very tricky. I remember wanting to surprise Paul while he was at a men's retreat. I had 2.5 days to transform our white half bath to burgundy. He had known I was going to paint, but didn't know the color. "Just not pink," was his plea. The first coat went up and I gasped, "Oh, no, it's pink." The second coat went up, "oh, no, it's fuschia." The third and last coat went up the day he would be coming home. Thank the Lord it turned out burgundy.

Worst case scenario: return the paint or "eat" the mistake, but don't force yourself to live with a color you hate. It's not worth it.