Project #2-the upstairs hallway

The hallway before painting. The boys are supervising.

After my friend and I painted the bathroom, I decided I needed to paint the hallway too. I decided I wanted something in the brown family and was going to go with a neutral shade of brown. I like light colors. I needed to go with something that would look okay with the yellow side wall I was not about to attempt to paint. I am really bad at these things, so I had my friend come over and help me pick out the color. The final choice was "Tender Twig" by Valspar. It was a much bolder color than I would have picked!

"Tender Twig" is the one in the middle.

I am not impressed with the paint itself, but I do like the color. Painting the hallway proved to be more emotional than I expected though. I got partway through it and was thinking about how I was proud of myself for stepping outside my comfort zone and how James would have been proud of me for that too. And I thought about how much James would have hated the color. He liked a very clean look. If it had been up to him, our walls would have been white and we would have had stainless steel appliances. I informed him that I was not living in an institution until I had to. So we compromised-pale, neutral wall colors and black appliances.

I started crying and panicked that I couldn't finish painting the walls a color a James would hate. I needed to stop and put it back the way it was. It did not help that I was listening to a compilation CD of hits from the '70's and these thoughts occurred while "If You Leave Me Now," by Chicago was playing. (A smart person would have changed CDs). So, I sent my friend a text message that it was making me cry knowing I was painting the hall a color James would hate. She responded with the following:

"James is more than likely laughing at seeing you upset at what you think would bother him, on the other side everything is good and seen in a different light."

I replied that James was probably laughing at me for falling down the stairs when I was trying to hard to be quiet. (My friends' son is staying with me and I was trying to go downstairs to let the dogs out quietly so I wouldn't wake him up. I slipped and fell down three steps. I'm okay-raspberry on my knee and a bruised big toe is the extent of the damage).

So, I finished painting the hallway. I really am proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and I do like the new color. It's a little weird to step out of my bedroom and see brown instead of yellow and I need to do some touch-up work as there are quite a few places where I pulled up the paint with the tape. Next up is going to be the office, which is going to be blue. This was not part of the original plan, but I am trying to learn to be more flexible. I am still planning to paint the bedroom purple. Eventually, I will get tired of painting-either that or I will run out of things to paint.

The end result

And, unlike light green paint, brown paint does actually resemble the paint chip when applied to the dog.