Manic Mondays: This is what happens when i get bored.

Girl's Room Makeover

Phase I

Because we recently took our house off the market (don’t ask), I promised the Firefly that I would paint her room.  She’s been living in the hellacious dungeon of Golbi Desert beige for [her words] “three years now, Mom.  Three years.” 

 

Okay, dear.  I will grant you that this is one third of your life; but before that time, you had a purple room (violent purple) and a horizontal stripped room which was inspired by a doll that smells like berries and only wears 2 shades of pink, white, and a hint of green.  So, really, the beige phase for attempting to sell the house purposes wasn’t all that bad. 

“Three.  Years.  Mom.”    

Anyway to celebrate removing our home from the invasion of nosey strangers (excuse me, showings), the hubs and I told the kids they could paint their rooms.  Any color they wanted.  Within reason.  I still have veto power.  All the while, I’m thinking, “Can’t we just keep the walls the same color and maybe update curtains, wall decorations, and bedspreads?”    

The Koala immediately piped up, “Blue and orange!”  Ugh, seriously, son; because we don’t have enough equestrian-football themed kitsch around here already?  In his mind, apparently not; he feels that we need an entire room devoted to a sport that only lasts (excluding pre- and post-seasons) four months.  We are currently in negotiations about his room [read: Mom’s avoiding dealing with it, hoping he’ll change his mind next week].

So, I brought home some of those handy paint booklets from the DIY store for the girl to peruse.  She’s very exacting, so I assumed this would buy me a few weeks.  And it did.  Ish.  Then, after a larger-than-my-usual portion of caffeine, I took the girl to the DIY store and proclaimed, “choose your palatte, dearest of my heart; and I will paint your room.”  An innocent passerby-er would have assumed, by the unadulterated joy pouring out of my little girl’s face and the delighted squeals as she gazed upon the wall of color before her, that I had walked straight into that magical Floridian kingdom, thrown open the gates of a certain castle of a glass-slippered princess, and announced, “This castle is all yours, beloved.”  Seriously, she was like a tweeker in a … [okay, my metaphor just fell apart because I don’t really know any tweekers, and I have no idea what kind of stores they frequent.  Really, I just felt the “kid in a candy store” was a bit too obvious here.  I digress.] She was beside herself with excitement at the host of colorful options before her.  She flitted like a cocaine-addled butterfly from royal blues to lavenders to cherry reds to freshly-cut grass greens to rubber-ducky yellows.  She could not settle on even a color family so we could further narrow her selection.  (Why do I keep assigning drug-laced metaphors to my 9 year old?) 

Thus, I did what any self-respecting mother whose caffeinated high was seeping into the air of the DIY store: I told her she had five minutes to choose her color or painting would have to wait.  The Firefly is a child who doesn’t really do anything quickly, so this was quite the dilemma for her: make up her mind, or be forced to wait until Mom was in-the-mood-to-paint again.  She opted for the former, yanking a bubble gum pink from the color wall before her, she begged for “Cheery” to grace her walls.  Did I mention it was more the color of a certain chalky, liquid antacid than blushing pink?  Well, it was.  But she was one desperate girl.   

I relented.  It’s only paint, right? 

Haha.  Even with the uber-expensive primer-and-paint-all-in-one (which had worked miracles before when I returned my red kitchen and master bath from garnet to beige and white, respectively), it took three coats.  And four days.

But the firefly is delighted with the outcome.  My eyeballs wince a little every time I go in there, even with the new sheets with which I intended to mute the room.  We’re going to need wall decorations and curtains just to cut the color.

No, I would not under my own compulsion have chosen this color for my home.  Ever. 

But it has made one little girl so very, very happy.  And that, friends, is really all that matters. 



Is there a color you wish you hadn't paint a room, even for the sake of your child's delight?  Tell me about it in the comment section -- I'd love to hear from you!