to paint or not to paint...

all three kitchen lights, the hall light, and every lamp in the house dragged out to brighten our light-challenged living room. all the furniture pushed to the middle of the room, and country radio filling the air, playing 'name that tune' before the first words are sung. comfortable silences broken by occasional chatterings, two heads left alone with their noisy thoughts, and the matchless 'mushy' sound of paint transferring from roller to wall.

for awhile now the question has been: to paint or not to paint? on the con side, it seemed like a lot of work especially in light of the newish information that we could be moving sooner rather than later. on the other hand tho, nothing seemed to be making this space less personal than these white walls surrounding us.

so last night the question took a new direction: what color would make our living room feel more cozy and more us? would it be 'olive', 'avocado', 'bread basket'...after spending a half hour in lowe's not getting much of anywhere, we decided to just take a shot in the dark, and walked out with 'mountain trail'

of course, the color on the sample is always slightly different than you originally envision it looking on your walls, in this case, it was much darker than we'd planned. we had thought it would look like a dark-khaki-tan color, but in reality it's more like a coffee-with-light-cream-brown... and with chocolate-brown furniture and lamp bases it makes for a lot of different shades of brown in one room, but this is all part of committing to a color without buying samples first. and in it's defense, as all dark colors never fail to do, it makes the room feel a little smaller, making it feel a little snugger, and the light coffee color adds the warmth to the room that i've been craving for some time now. so i am satisfied.

we had to laugh because this is our third painting adventure together now, and by pure coincidence every occasion has been right before Thanksgiving. The first time being in Pasco on Road 68, when November just happened to be the month we moved into our first house, and then last year when Zane's family was coming to our apartment for Thanksgiving dinner, we chose to paint our walls a 'cinnamon-peach' color in order to make our home feel more 'polished.' and then this year, yet another attempt to make our space feel more 'homey.' i guess it's just that intense desire this time of year that drives me to do whatever i can to make everything more cozy and warm.

and it's funny, this time around it doesn't seem as 'daunting.' it's just paint. you can just wave your 'magic wand' and turn it back to it's original state if you have a few hours of time to spare. i didn't feel the fear or pressure to acheive perfection, just the peace and satisfation of holding the power to create subtle changes.