Weekend Paint

Yesterday I thought it would be fun to paint one wall in my bedroom. I’ve been brooding over design options in my head for months. I wanted to do a color because everyone is afraid of using color and I’m not afraid of anything… except maybe chartreuse.

I had already sampled a couple of paint colors in a nice shade of Mocha and another shade that looked like dark chocolate, however, on my walls both of them looked like boring crap. Brown is just too easy and too common and so I decided to go with a green that could easily blend in with one of the lighter shades of green that you often see in camoflauge. It was masculine and dark, but not too dark and it made a statement – “The guy who lives here knows how to use color.”

I loved the green and since I had only purchased a quart of it I didn’t have enough to finish the whole wall. I zipped back to Home Depot and couldn’t resist buying a gallon of the green and wait, what’s this? Ooh, Cattail brown! I saw the warm brown tones and immediately thought I should do a gradient on my wall from green to this wonderful brown. It would be like a zen retreat or an African Safari. I could imagine myself wearing one of those hats not unlike the Urban Sombrero and khaki vest and shorts with multiple pockets. Of course I’d have a huge hunting rifle and palm fronds to complete Zen African Retreat.

I went home armed with 2 gallons of Behr pure premium and 42 dollars less in my banking account. I quickly opened the lovely green and slathered the paint on the walls to complete the top portion of my masterpiece. Then I opened the brown and did the gradient only to realize that with the lighting in my bedroom you couldn’t tell there was much of a gradient. Ugh. All the work and effort for nothing and now I still have 3/4ths of each gallon left – what should I do? The Activator in me thought I should paint the entire wall brown and the rest of the room this army green color. I quickly painted the wall brown and decided I would wait for it to dry before I painted the rest of the room. An hour later the wall was dry and I hated the color. It’s a murky brown that says nothing. It doesn’t make me want to shoot a gazelle or an ibex. It doesn’t give me dreams of Africa, rather, it makes me think of baby poo and things that smell unpleasant.

I quickly put my room back together. You would think that after I painted my living room 3 times before settling on a color that I would be better at this by now, but alas, I cannot be persuaded from my vision once I have an idea in my head. I have to see it, try it out, and then decide. It’s an expensive lesson, time and money go out the window, but in the end I do learn something and this time I learned that I don’t like dark brown colors in my bedroom. So maybe I should paint it orange? I’m really tempted to go with a nice tangerine. Just kidding. My second choice is to do very light gray horizontal alternating stripes and then to accent it with bold colors. Unfortunately, this isn’t my idea but one I saw on HGTV and I think the lighter colors will keep the room feeling open and airy.