Sunday, December 5, 2010

Paint: All over but the shouting

Perhaps one more coat of paint is not the most exciting news to report...But it is about as much as we can pull off at the moment and in any case, this particular room was rather cathartic to colorize. We'd had this room hastily painted (along with the bathroom, which is now the only room which still needs color work) right before we moved in. Trouble is, we'd chosen a color which didn't ultimately fit into the whole Monadnock palette like we'd originally thought it would; plus, we didn't realize it was necessary to tell the guys they should paint the ceiling white, assuming that all rooms have white ceilings and so that should go without saying. Oops. So I remember vividly the first night sleeping in this house, in this room, with no drywall except here and in the bathroom, staring up at a ceiling which was as alarmingly yellow as the rest of the place. I'll be honest: Those first fifteen or thirty minutes were the only time since we've moved here when I've been truly scared. What am I doing here? I'm drowning in an ocean of cheap mustard. How the hell is this a home? Then the fear passed and it hasn't come back. Nevertheless, that's why finally getting around to redoing this corner of the castle has been, as I mentioned, cathartic.

My camera still inspires no confidence that it captures colors accurately, but here's a picture of roughly what we're dealing with. The "technical" name of this color is natural wheat, but if I were in charge of naming paints I'd call it coffee ice cream or the color of those shakes they have at Wendy's. Whatever the nomenclature, it's a huge step up from burning migraine yellow or what it might be like in the core of the sun or whatever the fuck it was before.


This marks the end of our painting odyssey...except for the bathroom. Which we're going to wait to play with until we find out just how much more (re)work needs to get done in there. (That's another can of worms for another day.) My original prediction, once we decided to paint by ourselves, was that it would take...some number of weeks longer than if we'd hired out the gig. It's turned into months. But I was talking about this house with some friends the other day and some words of wisdom escaped my lips which I was not prepared for: Projects of this magnitude, you don't plan. They plan you.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A cozy fire and yet more paint

Our first fire...unfinished fireplace be damned. What we'll do with this particular nook of the house is completely unknown, although something has to happen. (Notice the ancient smoke stain from some flue mishap of Sherene's dad's.) Tile it? Paint it? Mantle? Hearth? No clue how this will end up; for now, it's December and high time to light up a fake log.

We did some painting over Thanksgiving break, too. Pictures when the second coat is done, but for now picture the color of one of those chocolate shakes from Wendy's. Remember those? When I cracked open the paint can, I almost couldn't resist grabbing a spoon and tasting it, it reminded me so strongly of those delicious fast-food treats...