The Amazing Technicolor Dreamhouse

Much progress was made yesterday with MattU & Bianca's help. All of the major downstairs rooms have their first coat of paint, except for half of the kitchen.

We tweaked our color scheme (the Nutria/Mellow Sage Snafu turned out to be a blessing in disguise. MattV did not at all care for the look of Flower Bucket in the living room, and even I had my reservations--it looked awfully aggressive. Matt went even further and said it looked like avocado--gasp! So we ended up putting Nutria in the kitchen and the real Mellow Sage in the living room. Still can't figure out why something called "nutria" would be green, let alone why anyone would name a paint after a nutria in the first place. But that's neither here nor there.)

Mellow Sage in the living room

The result is that instead of having a yellow house, we now have a green house. I meant to be a little more diverse, but at least gobs of green is better than gobs of yellow.


MattU very obligingly clamored up and down the ladder all day taping the ceiling and edging the walls. Bianca, interestingly, had never used a paint roller before, but she ended up wielding it like a pro. She got a lot of practice in the course of the day.

Here they are, recreating half of American Gothic (half because Bianca never quite managed to look properly dour. We kept telling her "look grim! look depressed!" but this just made her giggle, which wasn't quite the effect I was going for. MattU, who had been climbing ladders all day, was able to summon the appropriate bleakness effortlessly.)

Elginian Gothic

Today was really a footnote to yesterday--I spent it edging and applying second coats to the walls that Cathy, MattU, & Bianca had already painted.

The one exception to the general greenness is the study, which has one coat of (oddly gloppy) paint--it's meant to be a sort of leathery tan, but at the moment it's intimidatingly orange. I think a second coat will bring it a little closer to the intended look.

Note the objectionable Buick outside of the window. One of our neighbors apparently considers our yard to be his parking space. We're working on how to enlighten him as to his misapprehension. MattV has suggested planting a hedge there, but I'm thinking that might not be entirely neighborly. Ditto slashing his tires.

A risqué tan