On How I Went From Mucus Green to Baking Stone

"Mucus Green?" you ask. No, its not germs, colds or phlegm. I'm talking bathroom remodel! Which is finally nearing its completion!

For the most part the "hands-on" stuff, such as gutting the room and replacing everything...that kinda stuff...was accomplished by Doug the "Plmber" (as his personalized license plate calls him) and Roger the Handyman (aka as cabinet-maker). My role, of course, was to stand back and make countless suggestions and changes as they worked. (Doug and Roger are patient fellows!)

That interval of time between gutting and reinstallation seemed the perfect time to paint. So I went over the handfull huge stack of paint chips from the paint store and picked out what seemed like a safe, neutral, medium shade of "sand".

It's so difficult to choose color! In the light from the window brown turns to green. And under a flourescent, green turns to gray. And with an incandescant bulb, all turn to mush. So I took a flying leap, picked what seemed "safe", brought home a $22 gallon of paint and slapped a sample up on the wall....a sample large enough that in the light of day, when dry, would give us a "preview" of our new bathroom color!

My sandy color should have been named "Mucus Green!" Can you believe it took days for me to decide that, no, we're not going to use this...we are going to toss give away this $22 can of paint. My frugal nature just about gave in, but in the end good sense prevailed.That can of paint is out of the house. A friend will be using it to paint closets in his rental house...I think.

Since mucus green was not my ideal of bathroom decor, I decided to try a safe "off-white". The idea was to finish the painting before Roger installed the cabinets. Makes it a whole lot easier if you can slap that stuff on the walls without worrying about the edges of cabinets, countertops, mirror, etc. So paint away I did...just in time. The cabinets went in...the vanity in place...all was well.

Or so I thought. It seemed quite lovely...except that we needed sunglasses to enter the dazzling brilliance of that room. Squinting in radiant beams of light while trying to put on makeup just didn't work. We kept two pair of sunglasses on the sink...one for him, one for me. But it just wasn't working!

So here I am...trying a third time. With a paint called "baking stone". You may or may not be aware that color has "value". The value of a color measures its darkness or lightness. I'm certain there is a Murphy's Law that states something like this...."The value of a color will be directly proportional to the area covered." In other words, a little paint chip will appear much lighter than the same color painted on a large wall. I didn't know that. When I slapped paint on the wall I realized that "Hmmm, this is darker than I thought. "

You know what! I'm liking it. And I can leave my sunglasses in my purse for "out-of-door" adventures.

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