Scratching an Itch

A few weeks ago when my husband was out of town, I painted our bedroom. It hadn’t been updated in nineteen years. When we first moved in, I painted it two pale shades of jade to match my Laura Ashley comforter. I stylishly divided the top green and the bottom green (covered the seam where the colors met) with the obligatory wallpaper border that the 1995 decorating trend demanded.

palejade
palejade2

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my green walls. I didn’t even mind the wallpaper border.

By the time I remembered to take a picture, I was down to the poorly lit corner.

By the time I remembered to take a picture, I was down to the poorly lit corner.

(Stop shuddering, it was pretty! A narrow border that lasted nearly two decades with very little fading, discoloring or peeling.)
But the comforter had seen much better days.

I found a new comforter, also Laura Ashley, that I liked and selected paint chips to match. Two shades, but instead of upper wall/lower wall, I complied with the current trend of three walls and an “accent wall.”

I don’t know why the itch got scratched this particular weekend, but I took down the border and washed the walls, painted, got new curtains and put the room back together in three days. I bought the cans at least eight months ago. (I had the comforter even longer!) I’d been waiting a long time to paint. As I stood admiring my walls, I realized I’d been waiting a lot longer—I was obviously channeling a twelve year old girl.

I painted the bedroom purple.
Three walls in a color called Watercolor Lilies.

WatercolorLilliesF25-3

The accent wall? Grape Bubblicious purple. Grape Laffy Taffy purple. Grape Ape purple.

grapeape

It’s actually called, Lavender Sunset, but trust me, if Grimace leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, you’d lose him.
grimace

But I don’t care. I love it.

I did not paint my walls to match my nails, or vice-versa, but OPI now has a line of nail color inspired wall paints. Despite this picture, I think that's... an interesting marketing tool. (silly)

I did not paint my walls to match my nails, or vice-versa, but OPI now has a line of nail color inspired wall paints. Despite this picture, I think that’s… an interesting marketing tool. (silly)

I did wonder what my husband would think. The pale Laura Ashley greens weren’t exactly masculine, but they weren’t purple, either.

But you know, since he’s a man, the joke I was prepared to tell was this:
When asked what my husband thought of the new purple bedroom, I would respond, “I’ll let you know as soon as he notices.”

But he noticed. (Good for him, right? Good for me, too.)

When asked what my husband thinks of the new purple bedroom, I can respond honestly with, “He said it’s kind of romantic.”

SCORE!

Even if you’re not a purple person, you have to agree that freshly painted walls, new curtains and bedding make an old room look awesome.

Almost awesome enough to motivate me to paint other rooms…
like the nursery…
The nursery I’d hoped to have done by my grandson’s birth—last  June.

fbben3mos
(any excuse to show off my BB! Ben is 3 months old here)

Once I decide on a color, I should buy the paint so when the itch strikes I’m ready to scratch.
Does Laura Ashley make baby comforters?

 

About Mary Fran Says

I am an artist, crafter, designer and writer. I enjoy working with mixed media-- applying visual and tactile manipulations to telling a story. Not a lot of market for that, though, :), so I'm focusing on short story submissions and novel completions. Yes, plural. Lots of beginnings, too many ideas, not enough focus.
This entry was posted in It's all about me and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

9 Responses to Scratching an Itch

  1. The Life and Times of Poopwa Foley says:

    Reblogged this on The Life and Times of Poopwa Foley and commented:
    my friend Mary. so funny. (*the story, and herself.)

  2. The Life and Times of Poopwa Foley says:

    I love me some purple. and some babies.

  3. I cracked up when I read this! About 2 years ago I painted our master bedroom a very pale (almost gray) purple. Surprisingly, my husband actually thought it looked pretty good. Maybe that’s a sign we have keepers!

  4. Carol Kuczek says:

    I want to see pics of the whole room. I also can’t believe we were both taking down wallpaper border. Keith put his on 15 years ago with Gorilla Glue or epoxy. I’m not sure which. It was a bear to take down. Since your visit, I finished placing all the new furniture in the bedroom which is now a TV room. It feels cozy and has become my favorite room in the house. I hope to post pics on Facebook. I bet your bedroom not only looks romantic, but calming, soothing…which is what a person would want a bedroom to do since you sleep in there. It is a very pretty color. People who wear purple are perfectionists.

  5. Vicki L says:

    My bedroom bathroom is “lavender mist” – yes, purple. It’s the first room in my house that I painted, and was the only painted room (not contractor white) for the first 7 years we lived there. Kudos on such an excellent color choice, and double Kudos on hubby’s choice of the word “romantic.”

  6. What I’m getting from these comments is that happily married couples have purple bedrooms, ;). Proud to have joined the romantics!

  7. Chris says:

    I can’t believe poor Ben’s room still needs to be painted!

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s