G-d bless my girlfriends. Not one of them shamed me as I spent the last month perseverating over what color yellow to paint the family room/kitchen. Wars rage, sickness ravages and our government stumbles. Try as I do to keep perspective and balance, I could not move off of “what color yellow?” We’d go into restaurants, I’d ask what the color was (champagne gold). Jill sent me her neighbor’s yellow (straw). Dad and Pam shared theirs (dorset gold). Still, nothing.
But on Friday, it all came together. Isn’t that the way life works? You change one thing or try one more time and whatever you are struggling with comes clear.
It was a big week at the house. Picking paint colors is excruciating for me. Color is visceral. I feel it. People say it doesn’t matter, you won’t notice once art is up. But that’s not how I work. I see it, I feel it. I go through color phases. This one is yellow. In our last house we went from green, to orange and ended with blue. My friends shake their heads and color me crazy.
And I can’t hire someone to pick ’em. That I’ve learned along the way. I have some wonderful women in my life who are terrific decorators. At different points, I have tapped their expertise, but in the end, for a variety of reasons, I have to do it myself (with Ken, of course). I know what I like. I get why they make the big bucks. It is a lot of time and work. Frankly, I couldn’t afford myself.
On Thursday they started to paint the outside and the Grey was wrong (and I had “bought” that color from an ” exterior paint expert”). My stomach turned. Panic set in. I couldn’t afford, literally, to make a mistake. But, as she often does, Colette (www.handygirlfriend.com) showed up for a walk at just the right time and pulled the paint deck from her trunk. There, in City Park, she suggested a new Grey. The next day, Matt painted a sample of her choice and the breath returned to my body. Ken and Chris agreed. We were back on track!
THAT’S what friends are for.
Taupe, check. Yellow, check. Grey check. We still have to pick a color for my daughter’s room and then all we can do is cover our eyes and hope that when Chris yells, “move that dumpster!”, we are as happy as the folks on Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Our job is not that extreme. But it is extreme enough.
How do you MindFULLY make choices about creating your home? Let us know!
themindfullcreative.com 