Color and Highlights

Five years ago we moved into our current house. We chose it mindfully, planning for it to be the house we were carried out of feet first. Could I care for an elderly parent here? Could the kids all come home for Christmas, grandchildren in tow? Can my knees and hips go bad and still get to the laundry room? All the answers were "yes."

The house was built in 1976 and when we bought it from the elderly original owner, most everything in the house was in its original state. When the old house sells, we said, we will enjoy the updating process. Until then, all shall remain "as is."

It is too angering to get into the details of it all, but with the recession, the bottom falling out of the housing market, dishonest potential buyers - turned slovenly renters - turned bankrupt evictees, we still own "the old house." And I still have Coppertone appliances in my kitchen.

I don't choose to focus on the negative in this post. We still wish we owned only one property and are reluctant landlords, but the renters we have now are reliable and hard-working. It pleases me to see them taking pride in the house to which I once brought home my newborn babies.

While I can't put in the hardwood flooring and new bathtubs that I long for, I tweak little things as I can. There were two rooms that still had white walls. Since I disapprove of white walls, I planned from the start to repaint them in some inspired color. And for five years, inspiration refused to strike.

The rooms in question were the music room and the kitchen. The music room (which I mostly only enter to give lessons) had a pretty good vibe to it already and I spent most of the five years parylized that I would irreperably mess things up by choosing a wrong color.

The kitchen lacks much natural light. Everyone has a kitchen window, right? Not so. My kitchen is, strangely, an inner room and I have to rely on light bulbs to wake it up. I worried that adding a color would diminish the already meager lightness in that part of the house.

Last week I took the plunge. My brilliant grown-up niece (my brother's step-daughter) has done the painting and I'm very happy with the results. The kitchen is finished and I'm hanging up some pretties. The music room will be touched up tomorrow.

I can't wait to post pictures.