showcase magazine | winter 08
story kristy gledhill
At this bracingly uncertain time in our lives... we need all the light we can get to see where we’re going.
One recent afternoon, I found myself clutching my paintbrush in two paint-spattered hands, looking up at my perfect (Cottage White) ceiling, and telling my cats, “This kitchen... is the color of... happiness!” The walls are actually Aspen Aura at a 50-percent tint, to be exact, and standing there amidst rollers, paint cans, and drop cloths, I was simply enraptured with the promise of this room. It flashed before my eyes, as they say: I could “see” myself simmering sauces, baking pies, washing dishes, creating momentous meals, and sneaking green olives out of the jar by the light of the refrigerator door right here, far into the future. This color was the perfect setting for the life I was building. My life, these days, is awash in color. I mean that literally and figuratively: My husband and I have moved from the city to the country in search of land on which to build a farm, I am engineering a significant career change, and we are renovating a nearly 100-year-old home, all at once. I’ve most recently been painting the inside of this old house—a task, you may know, that is actually 90 percent tedious wall preparation and 10 percent painting. This is my first-ever project of such scale and I’ve been determined to get it right, starting with choosing the right colors. I checked out books on painting and color theory, spent hours gaping at the wall of paint chips at Home Depot, and enlisted the help of a friend of mine who’s guided others through these treacherous waters. I wanted this house to be the incubator for this new life my husband and I are building. I wanted light and color and warmth, comfort, inspiration... and happiness... to radiate from the walls. I didn’t want to end up like one of my friends who said the colors she chose for the downstairs of her new Capitol Hill bungalow—perfectly lovely as paint chips held up to the wall—made you want to wrap yourself in a blanket, sulk, and read Russian novels when you came inside. >>
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design & style
INLIVINGCOLOR