Monday, January 10, 2011

A Room with Color


My husband and I started cohabitating in 1993 and in the eighteen years since then, we've moved eleven times.  Sometimes across the country, sometimes down the street.  We have owned homes and rented, have lived alone and shared space with roommates and for the past eight years, with four messy people who refuse to keep things as we have left them. 

We've just moved from a rental to a home that we mortgaged.  My first consideration always with such a large purchase is, of course, what colors to paint the walls!  This, in my opinion, is the most important benefit of buying vs. renting.  Tax credits - helpful; familiarity - breeds contempt, right?; a sense of stability - who needs it?  No, give me a purple wall and I'm happy. 

I've got a new workspace, with two big windows to my right showcasing freshly groomed trees, ready to expand with the Spring.  I've got my comfortable chair and a place for my tea cup.  The puppies are happy.  They used to sleep at my feet on a wooden floor while I worked; now, they recline in luxury on our bed.  The purple that surrounds me is calm and warm, like brown with a secret, like gray with a blush.  A lavender perhaps, only more serious.  Heirloom orchid says the paint card.

Color has always been a consideration of mine and it seems to be an inherited trait.  A short walk downstairs and I can find my ten-year-old son, gazing lovingly at his fuschia wall.  It was so important to him that his father and I quickly gave up our fight against it.  He is happy and I can certainly relate.

1 comment:

  1. I finally got my family room painted a lovely dusty lavender color - have always loved purple walls too. My bedroom in teen years was painted psychedlic purple!

    ReplyDelete

"As soon as we express something, we devalue it strangely. We believe ourselves to have dived down into the depths of the abyss, and when we once again reach the surface, the drops of water on our pale fingertips no longer resemble the ocean from which they came...Nevertheless, the treasure shimmers in the darkness unchanged." ---Franz Kafka