A Splash of Color

Can I just say how new paint makes me happy? Okay--I will. I am so happy! Yesterday I started painting my bathroom, and it just makes me smile. I have actually been planning to do this little job for a couple of years, but just haven't gotten around to it. I think I was really kind of scared. Silly, because last year, well I guess a year from last October, I painted Dante's and Jake's room. It turned out great, but it was a lot of work. And nobody was living in it at the moment. We completely cleaned it out and then painted. That's really the way to go. So, a bathroom, well, we have one bathroom, and with six people, it is pretty much constantly being used. So when do you take it out of commission to paint? Someone once asked me how we survive with one bathroom--well, I think people learn to cooperate a little--someone can be in the shower, someone on the toilet, someone else brushing teeth and/or hair. It works. You just learn not to be so shy or you learn to look away. Also, you learn to wait your turn.

Last month I was in Idaho helping my mother paint her new sewing room. It was Grandpa's bedroom, so we decided we would have to call it "Grandpa's Sewing Room." I painted the trim for Mom since she didn't think she'd be able to get on her knees to paint the baseboards. And I painted the closet doors. I'm really not a great painter. I learned that a long time ago when we first moved into our house in 1998. My parents painted all the time so I thought it would be no big deal. It was a big deal. We were moving into an empty house--I thought I could clean and paint the whole house within a couple of days. Hmph. I spackled and patched. That was okay. And then I started painting one little bedroom. There was wallpaper coming off, so that was the logical place to start. It took forever! And I was definitely not good at it! How did my parents make it look so easy? So, many years later I decided to try again when Dante and Jake were moving into their current room. We chose wonderful colors--Myan Bead Green and some-cool-name-I-don't-remember blue. I still wasn't great, but I think I got a little better. I did not attempt to paint the inside of the closet. The biggest mishap with the paint for that adventure was when I needed a little more green for some touch-up spots. I got more mixed, it was the same, I painted, it looked great, but it never seemed to dry--stayed shiny. Holy cow, they had given me semi-gloss instead of satin. So, there are some extra shiny spots here and there on the green wall. Posters are great, aren't they?

So, for all this time I kept thinking about the bathroom. I'd sit in there and look at the spots that needed covering and tried to imagine some color on those white walls. My whole house (except for the green and blue room) is white. I needed some color. I have a shower curtain with a white background, yellow daisies and bees and some grey-blue birdhouses at the top, oh and some dark green trim. I kept envisioning yellow walls with the dark green trim. Then I'd sit there (hmm, sit where?) looking at the baseboards and realized that there is caulking where they meet the floor. That was white. I decided it would look strange with green baseboards and white caulking since it kind of blends onto both the floor and the baseboards. So, yellow walls and white baseboards and doors. I knew Corky would want to stick with white. I think that was also part of my trepidation in venturing into the world of color. Didn't want to cause waves, but it is such a small room.

Alas, I knew I wasn't a great painter and I kept seeing all the small spaces in the bathroom--the place between the doorframe and the bathtub, stuff like that. Could I make it look good? Then, when I was painting at Mom's house (see how this story is kind of coming together?), I realized I was painting over years and years of not-so-wonderful paint jobs. There were old drips and pieces of fuzz and then, it was rough where the carpet had gotten stuck on the painted baseboards. I felt so much better. Maybe people don't always notice the mistakes but just feel the crispness of the clean, new paint? I could handle that.

A couple of weeks ago, I stripped the wallpaper border that had been there for the 10 years since we moved in. It was okay--Noah's Ark, kind of cute--but I didn't choose it and I always looked at the spot where it was patched together. I was ready to pull it down. Kids even helped. But then, holy cow again, I had two kids crying over Noah and his critters. Corky told me that night Jake was crying, and the next morning I asked Dante how he felt--his little lower lip was just a quivering. There were no actual tears, but I think if I'd left the room at the right moment, he might have let loose. I was so surpised. Corky even told me he wasn't tired of it. Then Moni said I'd better not paint over the shapes on the door--there is door that leads to my bedroom from the bathroom. The lady had painted ovals, triangles and rectangles all over it. I had stared at them long enough. Mo even drew a diagram of where they were so she could remember. I was stunned.

I was ready. I got paint samples, for about the 20th time, and really chose a shade of yellow this time. When I was at the store to make the big purchase, I called Corky and asked if he could handle light yellow bathroom walls. He was audibly not overly thrilled but consented. Now, today, I have yellow walls as well as a yellow ceiling. It's not completely finished. I still need to do another coat of yellow and paint behind the toilet (obviously the part I'm most looking forward to), but I think the white doors and trim are finished--all except for the part I need to touch up since I had a Jake helper today. He wanted me to paint a schoolbus because I was using yellow. While I did the ceiling, he got a smaller brush and made his bus. Sorry, I painted over it, but he knew that would happen!

I am even going to spring for new towel racks. I figure if I'm going to have a "new bathroom," the whole thing might as well look good. I know I'll see spots that need to be fixed for a long time, but this is a beginning, right? Maybe I'll just keep going from that end of the house and work my way to the other side. Two rooms with color next to each other--that's pretty cool. So, when I'm overwhelmed by the white, I can walk down the hall, look in the boys' room and then go have a seat in my newly-painted john.