Colour Me Bad...

Well the day of painting came on Friday morning. Equal in excitement value to me as Christmas morning, hearing that early morning phone call from my painter letting me know that they were in the house and getting started on the living room, had me nearly bursting with excitement.


For weeks, almost months - Dr. Handsome, the Great Girlfriends and I agonized over hundreds of thousands of paint chips. This delightful agony was made even more agonizing when #2's father, a real estate developer, dropped off his contractor kit of paint samples. Virtually every colour that has ever been imagined lay in the 10x14" blue box.


As a child, I was that kid who would spend hours organizing and reorganizing my crayons, then markers, and then as an adult my dozens of MAC eye shadow pots, creating rows and rows of beautiful colour rainbows. All of the beautiful variations and combinations you could make - finding complimentary colours and contrasting colours, this heavy blue box of colour just about sent me over the edge.


We picked colour after colour, tone after tone trying to find the perfect ones.


We knew we wanted greys - with a vision of soft, pewter and dove greys blanketing our walls offering up the drama and depth we were looking for but also the neutrality of a grey to help bring out the beauty in our meager - but still beautiful - art collection. From large colourful graffiti pieces to small hand made crafts that #2 has made over the years as well as my photography - we wanted it all to stand out for what it was, rather than have the walls taking over. But we also didn't want to be stuck with what my girlfriend's ex husband would call "D*uchebag Beige".


So grey. Hello grey!
Did you know that for as many colours as there are in the world, there are as many greys? Brown greys, green greys, purple greys, pink greys, d*uchebag beige greys, blue greys... and the list goes on. In each triple deck of cards thick wad of greys I'd pick up, there'd be fifty to each colour tone, and then saturation and the level...


Finally on Thursday afternoon, Dr. Handsome and I sat down in the house with many many many colours laid out in front of us, and we walked from room, to room, to room looking at each one in different lights and breathed a sigh of relief when we were able to narrow our 90 picks down to a mere 10, and then 6. By midnight, we had sorted it all out and I dropped the chips off into the mailbox of our Dear Painterman, and off to home to sleep I went.


But I couldn't sleep.


Christmas Day feeling again. You know, when you're TRYING to fall asleep with every bone in your body but your mind is telling you "In just a few hours you're going to get a great surprise!!!!!!!" so you lay there awake and then when you do finally drift off, you DREAM of what you're so excited about? Yes! That was me!!!!


*insert clock ticking away*


Friday morning phone rings, painter is painting, and I am just about to burst until I hear it - a little tiny niggling of doubt in his voice when I ask him "Does it look great?!" and he says "Well...."
And that was enough.
I packed up the sick babies (yes! still sick!!!), covered them in towels and popped Iggle Piggle and the Pontypines into the truck's DVD player and drove over to the house.


Inside of me a conflict was brewing. I wanted so much for that proverbial Pony that i'd been waiting for my entire life to be standing there, painted on my walls but instead I was greeted with the ugliest, lavender slug. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Dear Painterman, ever the optimist said "Maybe you'll like it when the second coat dries", but in my heart, I felt sad and crushed. Walking through the house, I could see it - all of the colours were wrong. All of those hours and stupid little paint chips had culminated into one big whopper of an ugly lavender interior. My beautiful Craftsman house looked like it had the interior colour selection made by a colour blind monkey. *SOB*.


Dejected and feeling really bummed out, Dear Painterman said "Well, I've only bought four gallons, so we can start from scratch, think about it". They finished up the ceiling - White for Dummies and packed up for the weekend, leaving me with yet another mind numbing 48 hours ahead of picking (and hopefully not completely screwing up again) new colours of paint. New mother friggen grey.


Saturday, in a post-call haze, Dr. Handsome and I returned to the house, shaking our heavy heads, we left and I made a promise that I'd do better next time. The drive home was eerily quiet, aside from #3 who was on repeat asking for a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee (he's yet 2).


So out came the colour charts, again. Laid out on the table, under our own pretty lighting, we looked over and over and over. Thankfully Benjamin Moore has created the Historical Collection, which is basically "Craftsman House Painting for Dummies" -  a fool-proof system using period accurate colours that work with the wood and architecture associated with these homes. Sigh. I had no idea that it was this bad. I feel fortunate that I can even pick out my own pants in the morning.


With that knowledge in hand, as well as an armful of "Okays" approved by Dr. Handsome, the Littles and I trudged off to Rona and met "Jen".  Hallelujah! Immediately she picked out two colours that I've absolutely loved for the past three years, one of which we have our existing den painted. I immediately took a liking to her and had her mix me up a sample batch of the paint that I was hoping would work.


And this is what we came up with:

hallway

living room

dining room

Now. Before you get all uppity and say "but those are all d*uchebag beige", I'll remind you that what you are seeing are brown based greys which are what we NEEDED in the room to work with the coolness of the light coming in and the warmth of the floor - so ON the walls, they look grey, which is what we wanted! YAY! YAY for Rona Jen! YAY! for D*uchebag Beige (that look grey, really)! and YAY for paint samples that I can slop on to the wall and burst out into tears for the price of 1L instead of for the price of 1 Gallon.

So tonight, tonight - I can head to bed, warmed with the thoughts that tomorrow morning, my Dear Painterman will call, get the new paint numbers and off we go, painting the pony back into the room.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night.

<3