Facelift – a fresh, new look

I’m going to blame my sister-in-law. She and I had been talking on the phone, me sprawled in the hammock, listening as Kathryn spooled a story about picking the right color for one of the walls in her new home. Sheesh, I said, I never even look at my walls.

But, wouldn’t you know it, when I walked back into our house I saw them with terrible clarity and decided that something must be done. And Bob, bless his heart, gave me total support. Never mind that we’d lived with what previous tenants thought was cute for fourteen years, our walls now desperately needed a makeover.

Chaos followed. Not immediately. First we had to find a contractor because we sure as heck weren’t going to do the painting ourselves. The first guy said he’d get to us in a few months, then couldn’t. The second painter didn’t pan out either. But the third one did—I know, this is starting to sound like a fairy tale—and soon we were taking all the art off the walls and looking for places to hide the knick knacks.

As for the colors, we’d already spent months taping painted poster board samples to our walls until we picked five that worked for us. I’m not gonna lie, we went for bright knowing full well that we were bucking the current trend towards neutrals.

Our friends grasped their hands when we showed them our paint strips. Some came right out and said, “I couldn’t live with those colors,” while others wished us well before retreating to the comfort of their reasonable decor.

But we were undeterred. We wanted bright and we weren’t choosy about where we got our ideas. For example, a scene from “The Bear” inspired our blue kitchen. Never mind that it was one of Carmy’s nightmares.

We thought the deep blue “Flyway” would look great against our warm cabinets.

Our newly-hired crew of professionals patched drywall goofs and door dings, painted over the wallpaper, and were finished in two days.

No more falling asleep while doing laundry. That “Osage Orange” will keep us on our toes, blood pumping.

I spend most of my indoor time bouncing between kitchen and desk so the colors we chose for those two rooms had to get along. The blue and brown remind me of my childhood parakeet sitting on the curtain rod in my bedroom, his blue feathers contrasting nicely against the wood paneling.

After many failed greens, we picked “Teddy,” which matches our morning coffee. Brown was Carrie’s idea because we had a lot of framed art on the wall and she said brown wouldn’t fight with everything else. And it’s a bright room, windows facing south, so we knew it could handle the dark color.

We had the orange wrap around the outside of our dining room on the kitchen side, and painted the interior “Lemon Twist.”

I can’t think of a better color for dining than the color of a good macaroni and cheese. Makes me hungry just looking at it!

We didn’t have to think too hard before picking “Peri Wink” for the living room, a color that plays nice with the greenery of Bob’s orchids.

Here is the other side of our living room with its double-sided gas hearth and wood mantle. What you won’t see here is all the knick knacks because I only chose a few to display and left the rest in a cooler nested in towels.

We wrapped the entrance from the living room to the dining room in periwinkle, another nod to my childhood because these are the colors I repainted my bedroom when I was about twelve years old.

Our raspberry pink hall also got a makeover. I thought yellow would help lighten it up.

We’ve been having a whale of a time rifling through our art collection picking and hanging. One of my favorites is “Wired Wanderings: A Quest for Identity” by Robyne Plaga in back entrance. Not only does it pick up the blue from the other side of the hall, but we find the robot’s expression—a mix of elation and despair—totally relatable.

“It’s like living in a bag of Peanut M&M’s,” I said to Bob after the painters left. And that’s okay. We like Peanut M&M’s. At our age, we need bright colors to pep us up and thanks to Kathryn, we’ve got them. Also, thank you to all our friends who weighed in and supported us along this confusing journey.