Color My World

My life is consumed with home improvement projects lately. It all started last month when I picked out several delicious palettes of paint samples in French Roast, Java, Mocha, Biscuit, Macadamia, and Soft Apricot to name just a few.

After wrangling over the many options I decided on complimentary earth-tone colors to match my new flooring (yet to be installed) in the foyer, hallway, and living-room.

I check with hubby to see if he can live with the colors for the next several years. He gives a robotic nod without any verbal expression. Which increases my doubt as I know he's only doing what he thinks he must do in order to keep the peace. So I ask again to make sure that he's with me and he confirms that the colors will work well.

I get the first coat of Soft Apricot on the kitchen walls and I'm horrified to find what looks more like over-ripe cantaloupe. Jim comes home from work and tells me that it looks like a country kitchen. Great, my style has always been traditional and now it's turning eclectic.

Still, I'm determined to use the paint. So after a second coat to cover the paint streaks and bald spots the color begins to grow on both of us and we decide to live with it. Jim then put wood molding along the base of the ceiling and walls for a little extra touch and I place a rooster plate on the wall as a reminder of the free roaming birds of Key West.

Truthfully the hardest thing about redecorating is selecting colors and items I won't grow tired of in a few years. The way I see it, the painstaking process of redesigning a house shouldn't be done more than every 15-20 years.

I admire those ambitious types who redecorate and paint their walls every couple years just for the fun of it. I'll never be that type of person. As a matter of fact, my Eggshell colored living room walls remained the same for 15 years - walls I never painted. But all that changed today and I feel inspired by the Tawny Tan I've started to flow on my walls. I might even add a darker shade of brown in either Coffee Bean or Java to the largest wall behind my new sofa.

Meanwhile hubby looks at me like I've got two heads when I explain that it's a new style concept to paint one wall in a darker shade to accent the room. Then again what does he care as long as he doesn't have to do the painting, now that he's got me trained on how to cut, edge, roll, and feather out brush strokes.

Oh and I must mention that we're also remodeling the basement. Yes, we'll be busy for several months.

My appreciation for my husband's jack-of-all-trades skill level never ceases to amaze me. Jim's got a wealth of knowledge and motivation. He grew up surrounded by hard-workers who built their own homes from the ground up, so he finds it natural to tear down walls in the basement then rebuild new walls to create a family room and bathroom. While I, the city girl who grew up in an apartment where the landlord did all the work, feel stressed over every project we're tackling.

Last week we hung tongue and groove boards on the ceiling of our basement. Anyone who could see us in action would have laughed their ass off! I'm up on a small step-ladder attempting to hold pieces of wood in place while he's firing the air-pressured nail gun. The wood keeps slipping out of the groove, and he thinks it's because I can't judge how to hold the wood right.

Of course, the wood we purchased from our local home improvement store must have been seconds because it wasn't lining up properly no matter how hard I pushed it into place.

I'm still picking out the near invisible slivers of pine from my calloused hands, and even though my body hurts in places I didn't know could ache, I am learning and growing.

When I get the chance to catch my breath I tune into the DIY network or HGTV, and I read books and magazines on interior design. I am gaining the confidence to follow my heart's lead and the ability to cope creatively with the renovations.