Colour Blind
I'm pleased to announce that work started on our new home today. We have no kitchen and a big space in the family room where the cupboards used to be and I couldn't be happier.
Well, to be honest I could. Don't get me wrong, I am delighted the work has begun, but somehow even the simplest choice is proving really complicated. If I thought shopping for food was confusing, I had no idea what it would be like when I looked for paint!
In England if you want a white house with cream walls inside, you buy tins of white exterior paint and cream interior paint. White is generally called white and cream, cream. As they say in the UK TV ad "it does what it says on the tin."
Not so in the U.S. Oh no. There are at least 40,000 shades of white and at least a million of cream coloured products. Do I want Nomadic Desert or Simplify Beige? Heck after an hour in the paint shop choosing a different house would have been easier. At the end of the second trip of the day the salesman took pity on us and gave us the entire collect of paper swatches for free.
Another problem is having too much help. The more you have, the harder it gets, because of course no one agrees.
Our contractor Matt told us to choose whatever we liked, until we showed him and it turned out to be whatever he liked.
One was too pink, one too green. How was I to know the actual colour would look totally different to the paper swatches?
So I went to our interior designer, Kenny. He recommended other colours, but the contractor uses a different brand only so nothing was quite the same.
An old friend from California is visiting us this week, and she knew the answer. We went off to the paint store to buy sample paints and try them on the walls.
Good idea excepting each pot was $5 and we bought six, plus brushes, and when we painted them in the house they were all either too dark or too light.
After finishing work for the day, we dragged Ross round to the house to help. He promptly lost his temper at how much I had spent and how we had ruined all the walls.
"I'd rather have had the original colour," he said. "But now it's covered in stripes."
Tomorrow everyone is going back to the house to make final decisions, plus look at samples of kitchen cabinets and granite. I'll think I'll stay in the car.....
Well, to be honest I could. Don't get me wrong, I am delighted the work has begun, but somehow even the simplest choice is proving really complicated. If I thought shopping for food was confusing, I had no idea what it would be like when I looked for paint!
In England if you want a white house with cream walls inside, you buy tins of white exterior paint and cream interior paint. White is generally called white and cream, cream. As they say in the UK TV ad "it does what it says on the tin."
Not so in the U.S. Oh no. There are at least 40,000 shades of white and at least a million of cream coloured products. Do I want Nomadic Desert or Simplify Beige? Heck after an hour in the paint shop choosing a different house would have been easier. At the end of the second trip of the day the salesman took pity on us and gave us the entire collect of paper swatches for free.
Another problem is having too much help. The more you have, the harder it gets, because of course no one agrees.
Our contractor Matt told us to choose whatever we liked, until we showed him and it turned out to be whatever he liked.
One was too pink, one too green. How was I to know the actual colour would look totally different to the paper swatches?
So I went to our interior designer, Kenny. He recommended other colours, but the contractor uses a different brand only so nothing was quite the same.
An old friend from California is visiting us this week, and she knew the answer. We went off to the paint store to buy sample paints and try them on the walls.
Good idea excepting each pot was $5 and we bought six, plus brushes, and when we painted them in the house they were all either too dark or too light.
After finishing work for the day, we dragged Ross round to the house to help. He promptly lost his temper at how much I had spent and how we had ruined all the walls.
"I'd rather have had the original colour," he said. "But now it's covered in stripes."
Tomorrow everyone is going back to the house to make final decisions, plus look at samples of kitchen cabinets and granite. I'll think I'll stay in the car.....
posted by Hilary at
9:53 PM
2 Comments:
you may insist on colours you like... but then you may have to do it twice! It's up to you! And I just say that b/c I've seen walls that have beared the colour of those who didn't listen!
By
Anonymous, at 11:37 PM
And...PS... this is why i want to live in a log cabin!
By
Anonymous, at 11:39 PM
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