The Camera Shy Journal

One of the first orders of business in No Name New House is to get the downstairs bedrooms suitable for living. They’re not in horrible condition…just in need of some updates (paint, carpet, blowtorch/sledgehammer, etc).

So off we went yesterday morning to the Home Depot. The experience wasn’t what I would call one of our shining moments of parenting. Bos and I both agreed that we would like the kids to be able to pick their own room colors, but we didn’t set any…guidelines…to help them arrive at colors that wouldn’t induce seizures and/or migraines.

October found her color fairly quickly. “Bleached denim,” a lovely shade of medium blue.

Spotz…oh, dear Spotz. First, he picked a green that can only be described as dayglo-ecto-goo-green. It hurt just to look at the tiny color swatch. When Bos and I balked, he burst into tears. We tried to guide him to some other colors, but he wouldn’t have any of them. Then he saw a yellow-ochre-ish swatch. Better than the green, but still…

There was a part of me that said, “Lighten up, Eaves. It’s his room, not yours. Just let him pick what he wants.” Then there was another part of me that said, “He’s 7. He needs some help.”

After a while, we decided to break from the color-picking and wandered over to the lighting department, where we successfully chose some ceiling fans.

Then we went to look at carpet swatches. And a light from heaven beamed down on a particularly lovely shade, and the gods smiled and it was decided that Spotz would have a Mars-themed room with cinnamon-colored carpet and Mars-colored walls. Back we went to the paint section, and within 5 seconds we had found the right paint color, “New Penny.”

So we bought and bought and bought. Went back home, and Bos began installing the fans; Spotz, October and I began applying the tinted primer (which is really a whole story in itself). This afternoon, we’ll start the real stuff. Woot!