I'm staring at my empty computer screen, I'm on deadline, and all I can think of is the awful color paint we used last night to paint the bathroom. In the home decorating store, it all looked like it would go. A classic yellow stripe for above the wainscoting. And below, this tranquil shade of green called Aquatic Mist. But all I can think of when I look at the newly-painted walls is Crest toothpaste. So, even though we were up til after 2am last night papering, painting and plumbing....I'm going to abandon my writing for today and go upstairs and cover it all over with good old dependable white.
We were up for a change, but as I constantly remind myself, change is bad.
I don't often get the redecorating bug. Once we figure out where things should go and what to hang on the windows, they tend to stay that way. But every once in a while a musty carpet needs to be replaced or fingerprinted walls need to be painted, and that starts a whole chain reaction of redecorating from pictures on the wall to curtains to coordinating doodads. The last room I redecorated was our bedroom, which consisted of nothing but 4 white walls and enough space to squeeze in a bed and two dressers. On one wall we'd hung a fabulous quilt, signed by Disneyworld characters. We gave the kids little squares of muslin and fabric markers, and at Magic Kingdom meet and greet sessions they asked each character to sign the squares. Both grandmas helped stitched the pieces all together into a beautiful quilt. We hung this on our bedroom wall, which took up the entire wall, so I figured it was a great starting point for a decorating theme. What I ended up with was Mickey gone mad. A Victorian-feel garage sale Disney lamp on the stand, theme park souveniers on the shelves, maroon bedspread clashing with the Mickey red and yellow. After a few months of trying to believe I liked it, I did the whole thing over. I took down my treasured Disneyworld quilt and instead displayed it on a quilt rack in the hall. In it's place, the bedroom wall now features a lovely quilted nature wall hanging. Fern-designed curtains at the windows, a mossy green comforter, some old birdhouses on the shelves. Voila! Much better.
Which is all to get to the point that I'm going upstairs to repaint the bathroom now. I'm not going to even wait a couple months to try to convince myself that I like it. And if that means I'm behind on my deadlines, it will just have to be. I like a reminder to brush, but Crest covered walls is going a bit too far.
