Dominoes

We started to move into the house this past weekend... bit by bit. Since everything came together within a matter of 2-3 days, we hadn't really packed anything, so we're trying to pack-and-move at the same time, getting the smaller stuff out before Saturday which will be the big move date.

And, as my hubbie says, I have to make things harder.

I was determined not to move my desk into a yucky gray-cream room and so I took it upon myself to paint my future office this past Sunday while hubbie was working. Heck, I'm an independent woman, I thought, I can do this on my own!

Ummm.... yep.

My ambitious plan was to have a two-tone room; a darker color on the bottom third of all the walls and a lighter color on the top two thirds.

I went over to the new house with all my supplies (which, I'll admit, hubbie staged at the back door for me - hey, he knew where all this stuff was!), my energy-infused Jamba Juice, and a stack of boppy CDs. I taped-off the baseboards (which are actually chair rails; don't ask me what they were thinking) and put down the drop-cloths.

I'm was feeling pretty smart. Who needed a man?

Then I set to taping-off the door frame.... only then did I realize I didn't have the step-ladder. Being five foot one and three quarters, the step ladder is not negotiable. Cripes. Ok, I thought, I'll just do whatever I can reach for now and then go home to get the step-ladder afterward.

So I continued taping, crawling on my hands and knees into the closet cubby. But as I taped, the chair-rail-base-board started to come away in my hands.

Who needs baseboard - especially chair-rail-baseboard - in the closet? I'll just pull it.

This got me looking a little harder at the makeshift baseboard and 'crown moulding' (pah!) throughout the room. Poor cuts, located half-way along the wall and shoddy nailing left it a few millimeters away from the wall in several spots.

I think we need new baseboard; how much can it be for a small room like this?

Resolved to spend the money on new baseboard, I continued on my merry way around the wall, painting the top two thirds of the room in my pretty, buttery yellow, as high as my five-foot frame would carry me - and a little higher with a nifty little jump-and-roll maneuvre I think I'm going to patent.

With Janet Jackson's Black Cat blasting away on my Bose stereo (how great to not worry about neighbors with a common wall!) I danced and painted my way three quarters of the way around the room, finally getting to the doorway.

This is going waaaaay good, I thought with renewed vigor. Hubbie is going to be soooo proud of me.

And then I closed the door to reach the wall behind.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

In our fervor to purchase the house with all it's aesthetic defects, we had neglected to actually turn over every rock (or door, to be specific.) So, it was only then that I saw the nasty pinky-browny color on the back of the door. It is beyond hideous and there is no way it can stay. I think it actually made me nauseous.

The realization hit me as I looked around the room with new eyes.... the door trim was white, the 'baseboards' were cream, the chair-rail-come-crown-moulding was cream, and the door was poopy brown.

My list was going to have to grow:

• The baseboards needed replacing.


• The door needed re-painting.


• The chair-rail-come-crown-moulding needed pulling

And thus began the domino effect.

I looked at the two tins of differently colored paint sitting side-by-side on the drop-cloth and asked the hard questions: How much do I really want a two-tone room?

To help me make up my mind, I decided to paint the darker beige color (which was to be the bottom of the wall) in one area, just to ensure that I liked it on the wall as much as I did in the swatches.

Oh boy, am I glad I did that!

Set against the bright-and-buttery yellow, the beige paint looked like smeared poop. Not good. A change of plan was definitely necessary.

So now all the walls are buttery except one. The wall by the window (which is a small area) I am going to paint a yummy bright tangerine orange. For those of you who saw my cube at work, you know the color I mean - the color of my chair. Since I brought all my work stuff home from the office this past week, I decided to take a cue from my bright yellow, orange, and red accessories and fit the room to the stuff. It's going to be bold but I'm pretty confident it will also be beautiful. (Although the guy at the paint counter at Home Depot raised his eyebrows and did a double-take when he saw the swatch I handed to him.)

I'll take pictures when it all comes together, so you'll be able to decide for yourself.

The other knock-on effect of this process was that we started opening and closing doors throughout the house and discovered similarly poopy colors on the back-side of the doors in other rooms.

Hubbie is kind of excited, however. My mum bought us a paint sprayer several years ago and we have never had the room to use it. He's now planning to luxuriate in all his new-found space by spray-painting all the trim and the doors in either the yard or the garage. Bless him. This is why I married him.