Comments on: Coats of paint

By: Jessica

Jessica — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 01:50:33 +0000

I read “mental unit” and thought “Mig, living in a leettle grey cell .”

And now I must go to the produce market and press obscenities into bananas. Jilbur is such a bad influence.

By: lucy

lucy — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 19:58:52 +0000

When I sold my last house, I finally (after one month of snarky feedback comments from other realtors) broke down and painted my boys’ rooms white.

What’s wrong with orange, kelly green or brick red, I ask you? Sheesh. (Not in the same room, mind you- one was 1/2 orange and 1/2 white with a wallpaper border separating the two; one was kelly green, okay, all green, all over; one was brick red and white vertical stripes on the bottom and a white on top, divided with a chair rail.)

It seems as if not everyone likes color. Some people WANT white walls- either that, or they’re afraid or unwilling to paint a wall themselves.

Okay, this is obviously a sore spot with me. I’m going to go (and this is the truth, so I’d say there’s some irony here) and finish painting the woodwork in my dining room.

White.

By: mig

mig — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 13:25:38 +0000

Only the office is white, because it’s such a small room. Until recently, everything else was off-white or otherwise careful. But now we explode in a whirl of bold colors and patterns. Like, orange! Or something.

By: flerdle

flerdle — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 12:14:34 +0000

Friends moved into a house with a kitchen that had yellow and black diagonal stripes (4″ wide). Just don’t do that and you’ll probably be fine.

By: jilbur

jilbur — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:17:13 +0000

ha, I read ‘rental unit’ as ‘mental unit.’ And I thought, How awful, that they make the mental patients sit around staring at white walls.

Not that there’s anything wrong with white walls. They can feel fresh sometimes.

By: paul

paul — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 22:15:30 +0000

Hmmm, white? Are you living in a rental unit? I’m sorry, I consider myself pretty tolerant, but white walls in a house that you own is beyond the limits. Isn’t there an Austrian version of “Trading Spaces” yet?

By: Karan

Karan — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 19:09:52 +0000

I feel like I sort of eavesdropped on a therapy session there…in your house of colors.

By: chris

chris — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 18:28:32 +0000

Er- vertical stripes that is, not prison stripes.

By: chris

chris — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 18:25:03 +0000

At the urging of my (then) girlfriend, I painted wide (14″) stripes in the dining room, subtle tone-on-tone… ochre yellow and an almost undetectably darker shade of ochre yellow. With a white ceiling, wood floors and Mahogany furniture it looks pretty sexy. Also, at the time it was fashionable to paint an ‘accent wall’, so I painted the adjacent living room mostly the same but solid lighter ochre yellow and the wall you see through to the dining room a… a… soft, dark-ish purple is the only way to describe the color. I looks much better than I imagined it would. Unfortunately, that was almost ten years ago and it’s time to do it again. I’ve enjoyed the different look very much though and always get compliments on it. So, the moral of this is don’t be afraid to get creative- it’s only paint!

By: mig

mig — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:57:47 +0000

yeah i’m kinda torn over that whole effect thing and suppose i’ll test it on a wall behind a dresser first. part of the problem is we have plaster walls to begin with, making some effects redundant.

By: jilbur

jilbur — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:50:34 +0000

here’s some assvice: sponging is hard. ragging is easy. I’ve seen lots of bad sponging jobs, but a wad of damp cheesecloth patted over a thin coat of brushed-on paint to eradicate the brushmarks: that gives a nice soft ‘plaster’ effect, easy and fast and foolproof. satin finish over matte works well for that–it glows.