Considering all the work going on at the Oakes Tree, I should look no further than WIB loyalist Aubrey's blog, and aubrey was her name., for ideas. Aubrey, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're an aspiring interior designer, right?
If anyone other readers out there have a blog that I'm not linking to, let me know and I'll add you to my blog list. Consider this my olive branch.
Xoxo,
Paolo
Prior to heading to the house last weekend, Amanda and I made the mandatory stop at Wal-Mart for miscellaneous household items. I can't justify spending $10 on salt and pepper shakers or $50 for bathroom garbage bins at Crate & Barrel, sorry.
In the checkout line, we realized that we had nothing to sleep on yet and retreated back to the aisles in search of an air mattress. On our way, we found an employee and asked her help in navigating the maze that is Wal-Mart. Right away, she demonstrated an unusual passion for air mattresses.
"Oh, yes!" she said through a smile, exposing some tar-black bottom teeth. "The air mattresses can be found in both the outdoors and home furnishing sections. Really, I find the home furnishing ones last longer. I had to return the ones I bought in the outdoors section three or four times before I found the good ones in home furnishings."
"Uh, ok," I replied.
We followed her back to the home furnishing aisle. She had the swagger and shape of Roseanne Barr and followed all the beauty techniques of Cosmopolitan circa 1985. We stopped in front of a small section of air mattresses.
"Which one do you have?" Amanda asked.
"I have this one because it sits higher than the other ones," she replied, pointing to the most expensive, $95 double-high queen mattress.
"That's great. I think we'll just take some time looking at these," I said, offering the air mattress queen honorable discharge.
"Well, just stick to these," she said in departure. "The outdoor air mattresses are for camping and occasional use, but if you use an air mattress as your everyday bed like I do, then I'd go with one of these."
With that, the air mattress queen skipped away leaving Amanda and me in disbelief.
We picked up the $75 air mattress (Nor will I spend $95 for an air mattress at Wal-Mart) and went home to unpack and inflate.
That night, we felt pretty darn fortunate that our air mattress was a temporary fix and hoped the air mattress queen was resting comfortably on her royal, double-high air mattress.
After a little celebrating...
And despite a little snow...
We painted.
And painted.
See more pictures below.
It's official. I signed papers yesterday and get keys today.
253 till I die.
BASK IN MY GLORY!*
*Please use sunscreen. Prolonged exposures could be hazardous to your health.
Over the past week, Amanda and I have been brainstorming wall colors. I thought this would be a simple task:
"You like blue?"
"Yep."
"Should we make the bedroom blue?"
"Sure!"
This is not so because there are too many shades of blue and blue alone can be an hour long conversation considering appropriate trim, furnishing, flow in and out of rooms, etc.
We're probably exhausting the conversations, but that's because we're excited, and I, for one, have never been able to choose colors before. This is the first time I've ever had the chance to paint the walls I live within and was never one of those lucky tenants with the hippie landlords who give license to paint.
Going back to blue, we've spent an entire evening discussing the pros and cons of North Coast vs. Spruce Hollow vs. Canvas Sky vs. Impressionist Blue with the same vigor and passion as economists discussing a stimulus package.
(By the way, who comes up with these color names? Does the Sherwin-Williams guy graduate to naming Crayola colors or vice-versa?)
Right now Amanda and I are close to final on the downstairs colors but need to brainstorm with Sergio on what should go upstairs (seeing as he'll be living there). Last night we discussed reds, yellows and oranges going upstairs because we have all earthy colors downstairs, but who knows?
We've decided upon North Coast (blue) for the master bedroom; Shiitake (brown) for the master bathroom; Corncob (yellow) for the kitchen; Impressionist Blue for the bathroom and downstairs guest bedroom; Moss Landing (green) for the living room; and Stone Arrowhead (white) for trim. Whew.
The beauty of paint is that it's cheap and if we don't like something we can try again, but we also need to make some decisions and quick because we'd like to refinish the floors and need to paint first. Wouldn't it be nice if right before we moved in, someone went into the house and dropped off an enormous paint set and wrote large numbers on the wall for where all the colors should go? A life-size paint-by-number template would make this a whole lot easier.