The girls' room is looking a teeny bit better (i.e., less glowing) with a second coat of paint. So today our long-suffering handyman painted the bathroom. You know, the one I had made several trips to Home Depot to pick out the color for, the one where Larry and I had painted umpteen stripes of different paints so that we could select just the right shade. I was aiming for a sort of burnt orange - the kind that goes well with browns and sage greens and dusky purples. Something, you know, grown up.
It turned out bright orange. Jack-o-Lantern bright. Blindingly bright.
"Don't worry," said the handyman. "Let's see how the second coat looks; if you don't like it, you can go back and get a different color."
At which point my head sort of exploded, because it should be fairly obvious by now that I am incapable of selecting the proper paint. I mean, he saw all those little containers of paint samples we had tried on the walls already. I would have done better if I had closed my eyes and just picked one of those sample cards out of the display and handed it to the paint mixer guy. What the heck is wrong with me?
What with the girl's room and Brian's room (a bright deep blue) and the bathroom, we've got an exploded-Easter-egg-dye-factory motif going on upstairs. And the kids love it. The bathroom, according to them, looks "cool."
Which wasn't quite the word that Larry used when he came home this evening and checked out the paint job...
I had the Eater egg dye job going on at one rental house. The previous tenants had painted with abandon. Most of the rooms were rather nice, but the den. Oh my - pepto bismal (sp?) pink!
ReplyDeleteYou are not alone. Picking paint colors is HARD. Once, Laura's room was Screaming Yellow Zonkers. Ugh. I don't know what's worse. Paining a room the color of Screaming Yellow Zonkers or being so old that you know that's what the paint should be named.
ReplyDeleteI applaud you for having a handyman that shows up. That right there is a miracle.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Cheri - picking paint colors is hard. It's impossible to know how it will look on the wall. And they are all named after food, so one is prone to pick the color based on how much you like that food (my dining room is painted "Winter wheat" which is the very crop that I study in my work. How could I NOT use that color?).
When we were house shopping, oh so long ago, we saw paint schemes that made us scream. Dark purple with black trim was the scariest one.
I go with shade of white/light colors only. I also can't pick out paint, hence the pepto Bismol pink room the older boys have now. We painted it 15 years ago, maybe we should repaint, now that they have patched the drywall they messed up when they were little and the girls had that room?
ReplyDeletelol. Reminds me of when I wanted to paint my trim in my living room burgundy and it kept coming out pink. I actually took the paint back and told them it looks nothng like the card and they took it back. Figured out that I had to go with something with more brown tones in it to get the right color.
ReplyDeleteThe oranges are tough. I once painted my wife's office pumpkin and it turned out macaroni and cheese.
ReplyDeleteI love the kids' orange bathroom. It actually *is* a burnt/pumpkin orange… but I am one of those people you actually probably hate because I can wander in and grab a few swatches and pick out the shade without even getting actual paint samples. I'm about to pick out a shade of dusty pink (and then a darker one to use as an accent color) for the master bathroom. I love painting…
ReplyDeletePicking paint is hard. Orange is ambitious of you! Maybe you can faux over it with some browns and plums so the orange peeks through but isn't so overpowering. Of course, fauxing is a whole 'nother animal. Sponges and rags work pretty good.
ReplyDeleteOh, bless you. I always have a nightmare when choosing paint that it will turn out hideous. I guess you have absorbed all of that bad paint juju.
ReplyDeleteI'm also a color savant. I have orange downstairs and I LOVE it--and it has purple trim, because they're both secondary colors, and it looks awesome for an art area if I do say so myself. I never get samples, just paint chips. My kitchen is a lovely deep red with a buttery yellow trim (I know, that could so easily be McDonald's, but it is NOT). My kids have inherited this ability, I think. Really, the rooms we've bothered to paint look great. Sigh. I adore color.
ReplyDeleteA long way of saying, It's too bad I didn't move down there before you began picking out paint colors! I'd have helped. :)