i’d been thinking about painting my bedroom green for several years now. many, many years actually. behold this fine mosaic of paint chips i have amassed: one of these is for ralph lauren paint in a lovely shade of dogwood, and another is from crayola (“green thumb”, it’s called; i also have a little square of warm, sunny yellow called “macaroni and cheese”). both these tchotchkes i procured on my last trip to new york, which would make this quest at least… um… six years old.
it wasn’t so much a fear of commitment that stood in my way. ok, so it was a little. but it was more that i was afraid my room would end up looking like a hospital recovery ward. calm, soothing, healing green and all. and yet, this impulse kept rearing its head, year after year.
a few weeks ago, i finally gave in to it. there was a lot of masking tape involved, and scuffmarks on the ceiling from the ladder i bought when i used to live somewhere with high ceilings. there was a surprise appraisal from the team of actual, professional painters who, coincidentally, were repainting the outside of my building. there was a chocolate croissant for sustenance, and an early-to-mid-’90s australian rock playlist (cue: tumbleweed, you am i, spiderbait), and then…
green.
i like it in the morning, mossy in the natural light. not so much at night, with the energy-saving lightbulb casting a disturbing radioactive hue. i think i might have to revert to a good old-fashioned tungsten wire.
last week, i finally, finally put the cake on the wall. if i wake up on my left side, it’s the first thing i see. because of course, it’s never too early for cake!
10 Comments
Looks great. I like the cake too.
you done good, lady!
really good!
thanks! 🙂
Just beautiful.
I love green as well. My little Ruby’s room is a calming gorgeous green in the sunlight – but at night with the lights on it’s VERY vibrant, and I almost don’t like it.
oh yes, you *have* to say “almost”, otherwise the thought of all those hours and paint fumes becomes too much to bear! 😀
i have had almost all those shades of green on the samples on one particular wall in my living room in los angeles. this time out i painted the whole room a shade very similar to the one you picked out. still love it on the main wall, but am still not used to all that green surrounding me. but yes, sadly, the energy efficient bulb was replaced with tungsten for a warmer glow.
Where did you get that cake picture from? I love it. Love that shade of green too.. although if we’re judging by colour names, .. Macaroni and cheese would get my vote.
santos! hello! does that mean you’ve been painting your wall every couple of years or so? because, wow. i hope never to ever have to repaint the room. by the way, i was just going through my archives, and discovered that we discussed green paint and your living room almost exactly a year ago! and i know what you mean about “all that green”… i am extremely looking forward to finding all sorts of artwork to hang. right now i have my eye on some kozy’n’dans.
Y: i bought it just over a year ago, at the lucy culliton show at the ray hughes gallery, and i’m so pleased to have finally hung it (it’s just been perched on my bookshelf for all this time). in fact, you could read the april 28 entry in my archives from last year about my adventure purchasing it. she is one of my two favourite contemporary australian painters.
oh yes, me oh my, i used to paint that wall every 18 months or so. it is only one wall. then i stopped for um, 10 years? and now it is “perfect pear”. but not a perfect wall colour. s’okay.
i hope we return to green discussion in a year or so 🙂
I love the colour green also. I moved into a little unit and I never would have picked green. But it grew on me so to speak (not at all like mould)
Your food blog has been keeping me very entertained during quiet work hours. Thank you.
Keep writing. 🙂