Copper Leaf Studios

copper maps ~ custom copper artwork

My Inner Zen is in labor.

Fixing up a home is a process. Like childbirth. But in dog years.

Both are filled with glorious phases that are much more palpable, even entertaining, when you are no longer in the middle of them. I am in the house painting phase, which is the homeowner’s equivalent of morning sickness. Random, pukey colors thrown up everywhere, on the hope that in the end they will pull together to form something wonderfully beautiful. Or at least something that doesn’t make you want to cry. As much.

And like my real childbirth experience (that they promised I’d forget), I find I have no cravings, but nauseating aversions to nearly everything in front of me. Everything is so intense even when I really try, I mean really reeaallly try, to be subtle.

Case in point:

testing swatches 02:00:10
testing swatches 02:00:10

Ocean View and Seven Seas with Planetarium trim. My first attempt, granted. I could paint giant flowers on it and turn my backyard into a daycare. But that’s not quite the effect I’m after.

Take two:

02:06:02
02:06:02

Lower colors: Winter Lake, Regatta Bay, and Twilight Chimes. Upper colors left intact to make sure I appreciate how far I’ve come. Neighborhood watch secretly calling the housing inspectors, *just in case*.

[Editor’s note: to whoever comes up with these ridiculous names, I hope you are sitting in a coffee shop somewhere enjoying your $7 mochalattichino buddy, cause there ain’t room in this economy for both of us. And one of us knows how to use power tools.]

Take three — tired of running to The Big HD, I decide to put my Photoshop skills to the test:

house take 3
02:14:18

The navy taketh over. Hey, notso bad. Don’t know what color it is, but I kinda like it : ) I’ll call it… Midnight Aura. (Just kidding. I’ll call it “Blue”. Cause *that’s* novel.)

Still not sure what trim, but my good friend Vinty sent me this great link on painting blue houses: http://architecture.about.com/od/paint/ig/Blue/ (Truly, you can find ANYTHING on the internet. No matter how mundane.) I did like this line: “midnight blues suggest quiet dignity.” YES. That’s what I’m going for. After I go through labor, I want my quiet-frickin’-dignity.

I’ve also decided that if I had my dream house, it would look like one of these:

notmyhouse 1
notmyhouse 1
notmyhouse 2
notmyhouse 2

(Just kidding. My dream house is now officially brick.)

Homeowner’s Guide to Finding Your Inner Zen: Don’t be Blue. Or Planetarium.

swatch 1 swatch 2 swatch 1 swatch 2

yeah… I kinda don’t even know where to begin with this one. House painting is a brand new adventure for me. So I’ll start with just the facts, ma’am. And since I’ve recently been trying to convince my daughter that geometry is significant, let me tell this little tale in the form of a Geometric Proof:

  1. My house needs to be painted. (Given)
  2. The current “color scheme” is gray-blue with tomato trim. (“color scheme” is still a theory. Colors: Given.)
  3. I hate the current color scheme. (um, given.)
  4. So, I went up to Home Depot to choose new colors. (When you live .4 miles from The Big HD. Given. I think they have an isle named after me : P)
  5. I choose medium blue with navy trim. (if you’ve ever seen my wardrobe, Given.)
  6. Well, technically I chose “Ocean View”, “Seven Seas”, and “Planetarium”. (Inverse Color Naming Postulate)
  7. Did you know house paint is available in 4 oz. sample jars?? (Homeowner’s Are Suckers Theorem; Inverse Wallet Theorem.)
  8. I figured I’d test out the colors first, so I bought the samples. (Damn good thing I did, too.)
  9. They look nothing like the little card. (Inverse Swatch Card Postulate)
You Decide!
Testing Paint Colors -- you decide!

sooo……. left side? right side? neither?? Luckily I have had a good relationship with my neighbors thus far. But clearly, there are no guarantees. Other than that blue is BLUE, even when it’s called “Planetarium”.