A Colorful Old Gal, I Hope They’ll Say

So just for fun, let’s revisit all of the colors I’ve brought into my house so far.

First there was the lovely blue green in the “garage bathroom.”

 

Next we moved on to “Autumn Moon” in the living and eating and kitchen areas.  It took a few days, but it is done and I still know it’s the right color.  Seven years of marks and dirty hands and baby prints gone.

You’d think, as sentimental as I am, that I might be a little sad over that.

Ah, but no.

I am celebrating the absence of the green marks on the beige wall where Cooter beat it with his little green wooden hammer.  I am ecstatic that the tape marks from the pictures and signs that my girls have taped up are gone.  And those pencil marks, which someone tried to erase, outta here!  Even Miss Sophie’s baby prints (gnawing marks) are gone.

Heartless Mama maybe, but things are being put in order, looking fresh and crisp, made anew.

Yes.  I think my soul was craving this.

We have moved on to the next room.  The room that never really earned a name beyond the “big room” because of its multi-purpose or lack thereof.  It’s soon to be called that lovely and glorious name of “library” or “reading room.”  Books and more books.  All in there together.

Yes.

As I was contemplating what color to put in this room, I came across a picture on Pinterest that took my breath away.  The walls were…..

pink.

Or as I’ve been calling it–PANK y’all.

And the color immediately brought back memories of my Great Great Aunt’s home in the historic district in Macon.  I was fairly certain she’d had a pink room, but it’s possible that I was only recalling the dainty chair with the pink pouf as the seat.  How I LOVED that chair.   I emailed my siblings as to whether they remembered a pink room there.  Sister wrote back.  “Yes, there was.  And there was a picture of a lovely woman in that room.  And green carpet.  If there wasn’t, don’t tell me.”

Aren’t our memories precious and dear, all that they contain? And what gets fuzzy around the edges?

So I began to look at more pictures of pink rooms.  I felt compelled to create a room to remember Aunt Maye in.  She was a petite, quiet spoken love who never had children of her own.  She fell in love with the old house near Coleman Hill shortly after saying “I do” to her husband.  He knew it, and he bought it for her.  They were very sweet together and happy.  Until age caught up with him and Alzheimer’s took the joy away from her eyes.

But the pink is about celebrating her and the treasured memories.  Having Co-Colas in the kitchen with her and then her saying, “Let’s go into the house.” (She was raised in the time when the kitchens WERE separate from the rest of the house.) Oh how I used to wonder why she said that!  The Fruit Stripe gum she kept for us, and the alphabet blocks stored behind the glass of the bookcase.  The Church’s chicken picked up special for us for our lunches with them, and the sitting quietly while she and Mama visited in the hopes that they wouldn’t change the channel, and that we might catch a bit of Aunt Maye’s “stories” on the TV.  The huge furnace grate and the basement below that seemed a bit scary at times.  The way she made us feel so special by letting us play with her lipstick.  She never complained that we mussed up a stick or used one down to the nub.  She was a lovely person, and pink is a lovely color to remember her by.

So crazy or not, the room is 3/4 of the way there.  By this time tomorrow night the pink will be all done.  And the books will be in place by a week from then, barring anything unforeseen.  The dark wood is lovely with the light, airy color.  I am surprised by my choice, (and by the family’s acquiescing) but not disappointed at all.  It suits.

As can happen when these projects get started, now the foyer, the last of the common areas is looking a little, well, boring, if I may say so.  It’s beige.  And I finally bit the bullet and made the decision to change the color in there as well.

So here’s the question…..

All of these areas are separated only by archways–there’s the beige foyer next to the pink room on one side and the chocolate brown man cave/office on the other.  All are joined together so to speak. We are not touching the man/cave color.  It’s rich and lovely and does NOT need painting.  So it’s staying.

So what color, do you think?  I’ve just about decided on one, so I suppose it’s a bit risky asking.  Let me just say Pinterest is a wonderful tool–you can look up just about anything–and when I looked up historical colors for the home, this lovely shade came up and I thought, that’s it.

It’s green.  Slightly in the direction of chartreuse.  I went and got samples tonight.  Y’all know me, I had to get three different shades to try.  (We are going to have a humdinger of a homeschool project at some point with my myriad of paint samples.)  We were moving furniture around tonight, so we haven’t tried them yet, but we will.

I am embracing my new colorful home.  Did I fail to mention that Aub’s bathroom is a lovely deep shade of purple now?  And it will be adjacent to the new green too.  So exciting.

It’s the little things in life, you know.  I hope that Mama is smiling at me, turning over a new leaf, being a lot less conservative in my choices and going for it.  “Dream big, baby girl,” she used to say.

In the words of the young folks, “YOLO–You Only Live Once.”

But instead of using it for an excuse to wreak havoc and not care, I’m using it as an excuse to let my wings stretch out and my spirit soar.  The color is coming back into my cheeks and my heart.  And my home.

Besides, as I told my painterfriend, I want folks to walk through here after I’m long gone and say, “Well, she certainly was a colorful old gal, wasn’t she?”

Yep, that would be just about perfect.

Love and vibrant colors to all!