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| From Pumpkin to Carrington Beige |
Every morning in kindergarten the children get a
few minutes of choice time to settle in and adjust to the transition. Every
morning for the entire year there was a group of girls and sometimes a couple
boys, who chose to draw. Rainbows. Rainbows every day. They got really good at
drawing rainbows.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Roy G. Biv as we learned in school. Marin County is kind of a rainbow place. You have to go through the Rainbow Tunnel to get here from San Francisco. Our house has become kind of a rainbow house, accent on yellow. We have had a veritable bouquet of yellow shades, but we also have a red wall, a burgundy wall, an olive bedroom, a sage bedroom and until last week, an orange hall.
Painting walls satisfies my compulsive need for change. I like change. I crave stability. It's the oddest combination. Almost thirty years in the same house, I'm so comforted by the familiar. You know your house like you know the face of a dear friend. You remember the way light comes in at certain times of year. The creak of doors, the squeak of a step. The smell of the attic when you go upstairs on a hot day.
Sameness gets boring. It always has. As much as I love my house, I’m awfully tired of driving down the same street to get here. I wish I could move the house somewhere else. The last year has been a time of thinking about the future and where we may go in a couple years. Part of the process is slowly preparing the house for its new family. Part of the preparation is making orange walls disappear.
I had such bad paint issues with my ex-husband. We clashed mightily over shades of white. Of course color, or lack thereof, was just a metaphor for other ways we failed. Swedish and Norwegian, Robert liked stark, cold colors. Like Navajo White. An artist, I love color. I like to take risks.
Robert was innately opposed to change. His first response to anything different was always negative. He couldn't help it. A man of rituals, he’d do something new, after initially resisting the idea. Then he'd like it and say we should make it part of the routine. Why did everything need to be a routine? Starved for distraction and stimulation, I felt smothered and trapped. We started out full of hope and promise, but didn't wear well together.
When I remarried I was determined not to have paint problems. I couldn't handle it. Painting is a way for me to get a hit of change almost immediately. When I get the urge to paint a wall or a room there's no stopping me. It is manic.
The best example of my painting compulsion is a January day in 1982. I was seven months pregnant with Lucy and the nesting instinct was overpowering. I decided I needed to paint the nursery immediately. Yellow, of course. Forget the fact that we were experiencing a storm with such severe rain and wind that the Golden Gate Bridge was shut down. Somewhere in the process our power went out and I sent Lucy's Dad to 7-11 to buy another paintbrush. I then proceeded to paint the room by candlelight. Looking back, I can see that this was extreme behavior, but I don't really think I've changed that much.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Roy G. Biv as we learned in school. Marin County is kind of a rainbow place. You have to go through the Rainbow Tunnel to get here from San Francisco. Our house has become kind of a rainbow house, accent on yellow. We have had a veritable bouquet of yellow shades, but we also have a red wall, a burgundy wall, an olive bedroom, a sage bedroom and until last week, an orange hall.
Painting walls satisfies my compulsive need for change. I like change. I crave stability. It's the oddest combination. Almost thirty years in the same house, I'm so comforted by the familiar. You know your house like you know the face of a dear friend. You remember the way light comes in at certain times of year. The creak of doors, the squeak of a step. The smell of the attic when you go upstairs on a hot day.
Sameness gets boring. It always has. As much as I love my house, I’m awfully tired of driving down the same street to get here. I wish I could move the house somewhere else. The last year has been a time of thinking about the future and where we may go in a couple years. Part of the process is slowly preparing the house for its new family. Part of the preparation is making orange walls disappear.
I had such bad paint issues with my ex-husband. We clashed mightily over shades of white. Of course color, or lack thereof, was just a metaphor for other ways we failed. Swedish and Norwegian, Robert liked stark, cold colors. Like Navajo White. An artist, I love color. I like to take risks.
Robert was innately opposed to change. His first response to anything different was always negative. He couldn't help it. A man of rituals, he’d do something new, after initially resisting the idea. Then he'd like it and say we should make it part of the routine. Why did everything need to be a routine? Starved for distraction and stimulation, I felt smothered and trapped. We started out full of hope and promise, but didn't wear well together.
When I remarried I was determined not to have paint problems. I couldn't handle it. Painting is a way for me to get a hit of change almost immediately. When I get the urge to paint a wall or a room there's no stopping me. It is manic.
The best example of my painting compulsion is a January day in 1982. I was seven months pregnant with Lucy and the nesting instinct was overpowering. I decided I needed to paint the nursery immediately. Yellow, of course. Forget the fact that we were experiencing a storm with such severe rain and wind that the Golden Gate Bridge was shut down. Somewhere in the process our power went out and I sent Lucy's Dad to 7-11 to buy another paintbrush. I then proceeded to paint the room by candlelight. Looking back, I can see that this was extreme behavior, but I don't really think I've changed that much.
One October afternoon a few years ago I decided
the downstairs hall needed painting. I called Eric at work and asked him what
color it should be. He told me to paint it orange. Done. By evening we had a
pumpkin shade of orange in the hall. There has been some research done on the psychological effect of certain paint colors. Supposedly you sleep the longest in blue rooms. We painted our bedroom in San Francisco blue. I can't remember whether we slept well or much else from 1979.
Some of our favorite colors came from homes I've
seen on Broker Tour. I've even been known to go back to a house for sale and
nose around the garage looking for cans of paint. It's best to see the paint in
action before taking the plunge, but I've also closed my eyes and leapt plenty
of times. Paint has gotten very expensive, but mistakes are correctable.
We learned a very hard lesson with exterior paint. About fifteen years ago we needed to paint and my ex and I agreed on a Cape Cod style gray. That was the end of agreeing. The shade of gray became a seemingly insurmountable difficulty. My ex did not like any of the colors I suggested.
The painter was all set to go and he dutifully painted samples on the side of the house. Robert would come home from work, look at the color and decide he didn't like it. The same thing happened the following day. Days turned into more days. Now who's crazy? In the second week Robert took matters into his own hands. He went to the paint store in Corte Madera and supervised the creation of a color. A drop of this. Two drops of that. We ended up with a fine shade of gray that I could not differentiate from the other samples, but whatever. It was progress.
The paint job required massive amounts of prep and scaffolding to get to the second story. It cost twelve thousand dollars, but when it was finished we were happy. For a while. In a couple years we noticed something strange. The paint was fading. Maybe not exactly fading. It was changing color. Wherever it was exposed to the sun it lost the gray hue. In a couple more years we had a two-tone house. The upper level was Robin's egg blue. After all that fuss it was only gray on the porch. The rest of it was a paint color nobody would have chosen.
Frustrated, disappointed, we couldn't figure it out. It was a reputable painter and quality paint. We could get the paint replaced, but nobody would compensate us for the labor. So we lived with it. Year after year. Robert and I divorced and then we each married again, but the house still looked terrible. It bothered me every time I looked at it or thought about it.
Recently Eric and I bit the bullet and repainted the house. Lana and Rich were planning to get married and we wanted to throw a celebration for them in our garden. There's nothing like a wedding reception to light the afterburners on home maintenance and repairs.
During the bid process I learned something very interesting about exterior paint. In order for the color to last you must choose stock colors. If you want a custom color you can only work with certain pigments. A drop of this and two drops of that is not sustainable. It never was. That was an expensive lesson for all concerned. Two drops of enthusiasm mixed with a drop of reticence don't blend to become something lasting and beautiful.
Another twelve thousand dollars were on the line and I couldn't afford to make a mistake. I had to choose paint that I could see on somebody's house. I drove around the neighborhood looking for the perfect color and finally found it a few blocks away on Sycamore Avenue. I sent a letter to the owners complimenting their choice and begged for the color name. I got an email from the owner explaining that it was Beechwood Gray.
I showed the color to Eric and he deliberated for quite some time. At least thirty seconds. Then he agreed it WAS perfect. McCarthy painting did a wonderful job, although we had a couple days of drizzle. One day it began to rain mid-morning. I emailed from school asking if they could paint the living room. Sure, but they needed a color. I'd seen a home for sale on Sunnyside with very pretty, soft beige in the living room. I rushed over there during the open house with the paint fan. The agent helped me match the color. Carrington Beige.
Out with the peachy pink we'd had for so long. In with a peaceful, neutral color. So peaceful and neutral that now orange has been killed and the hall is beige as well. It's hard to say how this is trending. The Benjamin Moore website proclaims “Lemon Sorbet” the color of the year. “This beautiful yellow hue harmonizes with other trending pastels in the mint, coral, pink, blue and vanilla families. Uplifting without being overpowering, Lemon Sorbet is the ideal home paint color to complement any décor”.
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| In the blue SF bedroom on March 10, 1979 |
We learned a very hard lesson with exterior paint. About fifteen years ago we needed to paint and my ex and I agreed on a Cape Cod style gray. That was the end of agreeing. The shade of gray became a seemingly insurmountable difficulty. My ex did not like any of the colors I suggested.
The painter was all set to go and he dutifully painted samples on the side of the house. Robert would come home from work, look at the color and decide he didn't like it. The same thing happened the following day. Days turned into more days. Now who's crazy? In the second week Robert took matters into his own hands. He went to the paint store in Corte Madera and supervised the creation of a color. A drop of this. Two drops of that. We ended up with a fine shade of gray that I could not differentiate from the other samples, but whatever. It was progress.
The paint job required massive amounts of prep and scaffolding to get to the second story. It cost twelve thousand dollars, but when it was finished we were happy. For a while. In a couple years we noticed something strange. The paint was fading. Maybe not exactly fading. It was changing color. Wherever it was exposed to the sun it lost the gray hue. In a couple more years we had a two-tone house. The upper level was Robin's egg blue. After all that fuss it was only gray on the porch. The rest of it was a paint color nobody would have chosen.
Frustrated, disappointed, we couldn't figure it out. It was a reputable painter and quality paint. We could get the paint replaced, but nobody would compensate us for the labor. So we lived with it. Year after year. Robert and I divorced and then we each married again, but the house still looked terrible. It bothered me every time I looked at it or thought about it.
Recently Eric and I bit the bullet and repainted the house. Lana and Rich were planning to get married and we wanted to throw a celebration for them in our garden. There's nothing like a wedding reception to light the afterburners on home maintenance and repairs.
During the bid process I learned something very interesting about exterior paint. In order for the color to last you must choose stock colors. If you want a custom color you can only work with certain pigments. A drop of this and two drops of that is not sustainable. It never was. That was an expensive lesson for all concerned. Two drops of enthusiasm mixed with a drop of reticence don't blend to become something lasting and beautiful.
Another twelve thousand dollars were on the line and I couldn't afford to make a mistake. I had to choose paint that I could see on somebody's house. I drove around the neighborhood looking for the perfect color and finally found it a few blocks away on Sycamore Avenue. I sent a letter to the owners complimenting their choice and begged for the color name. I got an email from the owner explaining that it was Beechwood Gray.
I showed the color to Eric and he deliberated for quite some time. At least thirty seconds. Then he agreed it WAS perfect. McCarthy painting did a wonderful job, although we had a couple days of drizzle. One day it began to rain mid-morning. I emailed from school asking if they could paint the living room. Sure, but they needed a color. I'd seen a home for sale on Sunnyside with very pretty, soft beige in the living room. I rushed over there during the open house with the paint fan. The agent helped me match the color. Carrington Beige.
Out with the peachy pink we'd had for so long. In with a peaceful, neutral color. So peaceful and neutral that now orange has been killed and the hall is beige as well. It's hard to say how this is trending. The Benjamin Moore website proclaims “Lemon Sorbet” the color of the year. “This beautiful yellow hue harmonizes with other trending pastels in the mint, coral, pink, blue and vanilla families. Uplifting without being overpowering, Lemon Sorbet is the ideal home paint color to complement any décor”.
Uplifting without being overpowering? It sounds like something to drink. I’m not sure where folks are using mint and coral pastels. Maybe Miami Beach. All the properties I’ve been seeing seem to be Carrington Beige. Remember, you heard it here first.
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