Ever since the green paint incident* I’ve had a fear of painting the wrong color in a room, but I’ve done pretty well for myself, I think, with this current apartment. That’s a total attitude change from a few days ago, brought on by the elimination of the ugly blue-green trim color that permeated our new digs, the color I’ve been raging against since I first saw the place. (“What were they thinking?!”)

We painted every white wall first with “risky” colors that I hoped I would come to love, and having the ugly trim paired with my freshly painted walls that I wasn’t quite sure about threw me off into believing the entire place was a disaster. I was so upset thinking that I was going to live in the UGLIEST! APARTMENT! EVER! and that I spent money for paint and worked hard painting for that privilege. (It would be one thing if the apartment was ugly through no fault of my own, but to actually make it ugly? Unbearable.) Now, though, with a few coats of America’s favorite paint color, Navajo White, the ugly trim is gone, replaced by crispy colored trim that gives the entire apartment a fresh, modern feeling. It’s downright beautiful if I do say so myself!

We’re half-way there getting the trim done; the ugly color is so deep it requires two coats of Navajo White, and is so extensive – every room, every doorway – that I’m going to be super busy painting it all before moving day Thursday. I’m listening to Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk while I’m doing it, which helps pass the time better than music.

I’ll be back in a few days, posting from Park Slope!

_____

*Oh, it was bad. The worst was that my friends tried to talk me out of it, even as they were painting it, and I was all, “No, no! It’s gonna be great!” and I loved it for about three seconds, and then I was devastated and had to paint over it.

“You didn’t actually want to paint!” I said to Rob. The realization hit me suddenly, roller in hand, mid-roll, and I froze while paint dripped down my arm. I felt terrible.

“It’s fine!” he said, but then later he admitted, “I would have just left it. But I know you. You need it nice. So, we paint.”

How great is my guy? It hadn’t occurred to him to bother talking me out of painting the entire apartment, he just sucked it up and did it.

You may take this moment to stand up and applaud my husband for his awesomeness, thoughtfulness, and wonderfulness.

Later, he was all hugs and consoling pats on the back when I had a meltdown and could not paint another single stroke. After that, I was sent home to shower and relax while he spent the day finishing up by himself. I really hate moving, but since I have to, I’m glad to go through this with Rob. He is a good dude.

We painted two colors, a light slate blue that’s unusual but growing on me, and a color that I thought would be a hip modern camel-butterscotch beige, but what actually turned out to be a mustardy, baby-poop, project housing hallway tan. Bummer! I’m hoping that will grow on me, too.

The whole process of picking colors was frustrating and overwhelming.  I’ve picked paint before and had both great success and horrible results. If I was doing it again, I would have borrowed the ENTIRE color deck selector from Home Depot rather than deal with traveling to Home Depot several times for a bunch of chips (at one point I had about 2 dozen different beige squares spread out on the floor of the new place and let Stu! pick what she liked; she told me to throw them all out and try again).

***

According to this article NYTimes, we are part of a growing trend of people that rent in NYC and buy in the suburbs. I wish we had thought of this before we spent months and months looking for something to buy here last year! We felt a little crazy taking this unusual real estate path, but it seemed like it made sense, and a year later, I’m excited about our decision. See? I do live and learn! Just not about picking paint colors.