The Rainbow Connection

Now that the drywall has been hung, taped, sanded, and textured, I finally get to make some fun decisions about aesthetics instead of structure. Bored with rafter tails and railings, I'm ready to move on to the stuff that'll make the place look real purty.

I began with the patient, funny, and helpful Ann M. at Village Lighting, logging about five hours with her selecting lights and a doorbell. Most of the rooms and spaces have recessed lighting, but the dining area called for a decorative fixture, and the seven-foot island in the kitchen needed illumination, as well. I'm satisfied that the choices we made will be enhancements, rather than distractions, and I'm grudgingly pleased to have been dissuaded from purchasing this 40-votive "candelier" for the master bedroom. (As Ann and I discussed, by the time I finished lighting all the candles, anyone I was attempting to seduce would probably have fallen asleep anyway).

Besides lighting, the place is going to need some color, and I've wavered from my original plan to paint everything "warm neutral" (of which there are oh, about 867,459 varieties) and use some coloration in the rooms. Right now, the whole place is WHITE WHITE WHITE and it's not a flattering shade for either the house or its occupant(s). The place looks like a set from Grey's Anatomy, only without the added horror of a whiney Ellen Pompeo Eyore-ing about how Sheetrock makes her hair look straggly.

The kitchen cabinets are maple and the granite will be black, so I've (almost) chosen a rich red color for the walls. Red dye, or Color Additive E120, that tints everything from lipstick to Lexuses, comes form the blood of the cochineal insect, which is bred on and harvested from the broad, flat leaves of the prickly pear cactus. I like its dramatic genesis and its warmth, plus it will match the nipple of the nearly-naked woman on the painting I plan to hang in the kitchen. In her book Color: A Natural History of the Palette, Victoria Finlay writes of red's historical symbolic significance, "for many cultures, red is both death and life...red is anger, it is fire, it is the stormy feelings of the hearth, it is love, it is power." It makes sense for my house, then, where the kitchen is the planned center of the place--the heart, if you will--to have that room be red. Or Cranberry Craze. Or Salsa Splash. Or Blood of Bug. Or whatever.

Remember the Friends episode where Monica gushes about turning Rachel's former bedroom into a guest room with mints on the pillow? I have the same dream for the back bedroom, if only so I can have one room that remains pristine and animal-hair free. I've selected about 40 different manifestations of sage green, and hope to narrow it down to one before next Monday, when the painter plans to start. I'm going for a cool, calming, uncluttered space for guests to rest, which will be much more convenient when I actually have an extra bed for them. But never mind that for now--I have a mini Zen garden and fountain, a couple of soothing candles (Jan's Serenity, anyone?) and some paint. Or an idea of paint. What is more relaxing, after all, than nothingness?

The front bedroom, the one with the nook under the stairs where I'll have a little bed built in for the World's Cutest Nephew, will be pale yellow, assuming that I can find a pale yellow that actually turns out to be both pale and yellow once it hits the wall. The last time I used yellow, it looked like Colonel Mustard did it in the bedroom with a paintbrush. Finally, my bedroom upstairs will be some variation of pale lavender in order to match my seventeen purple throw pillows.

Underfoot, where it now looks like a cocaine factory exploded thanks to the drywall dust, I'm going to have a combination of oak (living room, kitchen, and hallway); carpet (stairs, bedrooms, study) and slate (entry, bathrooms). Art M. is patiently awaiting my decisions, so that he can begin on April 28th (OMG!), and I hope to placate him soon. James and I compared the oaks offered to the pine in the ceiling and came up with a combo that is complementary without being, as my friend Jill says, "too matchy-matchy." My main criteria for carpet is that it be spill-uponable, from both an easy-to-clean sense and a whoops-hide-the-sloshy-red-wine sense. I like the stuff I've chosen, and if blogs were touch-and feel, I'd show it too you now. But they're not, so I guess you'll just have to stop by and squish your toes in it yourself. Very, very soon...