“Can’t you even think without spending money?” my husband asks when he sees me come home carrying a box of six quarts of paint to test.
“I guess that’s your answer,” I say, plopping the carton on the kitchen counter.
“Could you have narrowed it down to, say, three quarts?”
“Actually, I bought eight. Two more are in the car.”
Like many men, Dan’s brain wiring skips the region that perceives color and jumps straight to the region that computes compounded interest. To him, every color from mauve to merlot is red, and everything from celadon to forest is green. I, on the other hand, see nuances in color that aren’t even there, obsess about choosing, then still get it wrong.
This time, I knew I wanted something between butterscotch and brown bag to coat the walls of our basement, which we have been trying to finish since Lincoln gave his famous address. I pulled some paint chips, looked at them in my home’s light, narrowed down the choices from 20, then bought eight test quarts, which I thought was prudent.
Dan stares into the carton. The guy at the paint store had helpfully dropped a spot of paint on each can lid to indicate the color inside.
“They’re all the same,” Dan says.
“Are not,” I point out. “This one is more caramel, this is more toasted wheat, this. …” I look up and see he’s walking away.
“As long as you like it,” he says. Note to husbands: This is an excellent line you should use often if you wish to stay married or at least avoid excessive bruising.
Using 99-cent disposable sponge brushes, I apply two coats of each color to large scraps of drywall. When the paint is dry, I move the drywall planks around the basement like stiff dance partners to view them in different lights, against my carpet samples.
Then I tell Dan the three colors to buy.
“Three? What happened to picking one color?” he asks.
“They’re variations of a shade.”
“Huh?”
“We’ll paint the darkest shade behind the bar, the midtone in the pool table area, and the lightest in the bedroom.”
“Why?”
“It will compound the interest,” I say.
When it came time to roll on the color, I give both my daughters paint rollers. They hadn’t been this excited since they learned to clean the grout in their bathrooms. To avoid turf wars, we each paint with a different color in a different area. A while later, Dan comes in to help. “I thought you were going to paint these areas different colors,” he says.
“They are different,” the girls and I say together.
For a moment, I can tell, he thinks we’re bluffing. Then he says, wisely, “As long as you’re happy.”
Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in the Denver area. You may contact her through her website, marnijameson.com.
Coat yourself in painting wisdom
Every time we paint, we always learn or relearn key tips.
Pick: Don’t go just from the paint chip, which is actually ink, not paint. Some companies, including Ralph Lauren, sell little test bags of color, which are cheaper than quarts.
Price: Hiring a professional painter is a luxury, usually affordable and worth it. However, after we looked at the $5,000 painting bid and our budget, we opted to do the job ourselves.
Prepare: Mask all trim well. Move furniture to the room’s center, then cover it and the floor with plastic or tarps.
Prime: Unpainted drywall is thirsty. Use a primer and sealer first. The color goes on smoother. Because primer costs less than paint, you’ll save overall. With a dark color, like deep red, have the paint store mix a color primer. If you have a lot of surface, consider renting a paint compressor.
Paint: Lay it on thick. While the compressor works well to prime, hand rolling two coats of color gives the best coverage. Buy corner rollers to apply paint where walls meet.
