Drivel

Long, boring weekend. The Adorable Husband is on call this weekend (as he is on 2-3 each month) and so we are limited in our escapades. We can only head north (we live on the very southern boundary of the 30-minute recall limit for the hospital) and since we have a tendency to lounge about on the weekend doing nothing until noon, our days are a bit slow.

I made the mistake of consulting the Adorable Husband on paint colors for the guest bedroom. I picked out a half-dozen shades of mustard yellow and he dutifully looked them, hemmed and hawed, held them up to the light, and made appropriately supportive noises. It's not fair, of course. As he's said many times before, men only see in 16 colors.

"Yellow." He says with a frown. "Yellow would be good. Nothing too bright, though." (Translated: Ah-hah! A color I recognize. Sort of.)

"It's not really yellow. More gold-ish. Do you like Gourd or Deep Cowslip?" I ask, holding up only two of the little yellow squares. It's much easier if it's an either-or decision.

He squints at the cards, turns them to the light. "Which one do you like?" (Translated: These are different colors? )

"This one is more muted. I think it will go better with the other colors." At this point, I should just give up and pick on myself.

"Yes." he says, peering at the two colors like a curator looking at fine paintings. "It is." (Translated: Pick one. I have no idea.)

I finally relent and hold up one of the colors. "I like this one." Relief blooms on his face.

"Yeah. I like that one better, too." He really is a good sport about all this.

I learned after the first try at painting a dark color that just blue painters tape to protect the baseboards is not enough. Paint manages to slither under the tape and the edges look horrible. Every time I look at the side of the window in our bedroom, I wince: the dark green is all over the side of the window trim and it makes me nuts.

So, once the tape goes up I go through and caulk every edge. The idea is to put down a bead of caulk and then wipe away as much of it as possible, just enough to seal the edge of the tape against the wall and give a clean line. My painter friend usually tapes, then paints over the tape with the trim color, then pains the walls. The white paint then fills the gaps between the trim and tape and the edge comes out clean. Caulking is easier, I think.

So, two days painting. I still need the Adorabel Husband to do the ceiling, since even on a 6' ladder I'm too short, but it looks lovely. Bright. Not as bad as the Big-Bird Yellow bathroom that I painted in our first rental. I bought a gallon of cheap, yellow paint to brighten up the dingy bathroom and painted everything (the trim, the door, the walls). I did it during the day, it looked pretty good.

The poor husband came home after dark, walked into the bathroom and flipped on the light. And screamed. With the four 100-watt bulbs over the sink turned on, it was retina-burning neutron-star yellow. I'll never hear the end of it.