The Love Bug wanted to paint her bedroom her favorite color, BLUE, before school started, and sure her Mother could have hired a painter, taken the easy route. But where’s the fun in that? And what kind of lesson does outsourcing send to our kids? And though we haven’t done any painting in a dog’s age, we offered to help. Bob went to the paint store with them to get everything they needed – the rollers, brushes, tape, etc. And Saturday, the Grands came over to cart our long ladder over to their house. They were ready to begin.
I’ve lost track of how many rooms I’ve painted over the years. It’s never been a solitary activity. You order pizza, buy some beer, and invite your friends over to help paint. We even bartered a paint job with a tenant in the basement apartment of the medical school foursquare in Charlottesville. Free rent if he painted his apartment, which he did! We did a lot of painting and wallpapering in NJ, but right about the time we started building our house in the Blue Ridge Mountains, we realized it was best if the painting was left to the professionals. Also, we hit middle age.
Painting is a young person’s game.
The first day was all about preparation – laying down tarps, moving furniture, spackling picture holes and cracks, sanding and taping the trim. I forgot how much of painting is actually just getting ready to paint. The next day we were ready to begin. I offered to bring lunch, which was appreciated since the Groom was on call in the MICU and the Bride had two Bluebird appointments. I mean what else could I do? Ladders are verboten to me, and she has cathedral ceilings!
I did help pick the shade of blue. When I asked Bob what colors the Bug was considering he said, “Sky blue, sky blue and sky blue.” I swear sometimes I think Bob is color blind. SO I marched myself over to their house in the middle of the week to look at the three swatches of blue on the Bug’s bedroom wall. One was too green. Of the remaining two periwinkle colors one was lighter than the other. Good thing I sided with the rest of the females in the family. The deeper shade won, Sherwin Williams’ “Something Blue.”
Picking out the wall colors for the casita was easy. I just asked my brilliant designer DIL, Aunt Kiki, what was hip in off-white these days. The last time I picked an off-white it was Navajo White, which almost looks beige. She told me she loves Swiss Coffee, and so I looked it up – it’s a creamy, warm off white with a balanced light reflection value (LRV), and looks great with natural woods according to the experts. It also looks good with my sage green kitchen cabinets.
But back to Funday Sunday After lunch, my main job was holding the ladder for the Love Bug, a most important role! After all, she was reaching eleven feet up in the air! The Pumpkin was relaxing since he was going to do most of the rolling with a very long handle, while Bob and the Bride used brushes to paint near the white trim. After a couple of hours, the Groom arrived back from the hospital to take over the tall, ceiling adjacent painting on the ladder. At one point, I was able to dab a little paint around her closet door, which was extremely satisfying.
We laughed, we told stories, we listened to Olivia Rodrigo on my phone. And now, the about to turn 14 beautiful Bug can say she painted her own room, with a little help from her fam. ps – just looked up Olivia Rodrigo tickets for her Nashville dates and she is sold OUT! Well, it was a good birthday present idea. ps Proposed amendment to the Torah – Parents teach your children how to swim and paint!
MountainMornings 