I’ve been painting again. Not beautiful landscapes and inspired portraits of Aiken in Spring. Unlike so many of my talented friends, I have absolutely no ability for that kind of artistic expression. I’ve been painting rooms. To be truthful, a delightful handyman named Paul has been painting them for me – what with my still-gimpy leg and better discretion about not climbing ladders.
The rooms are in my guest cottage. A small bit of a place not more than a few yards behind my house, tucked into the far northeast corner of the property. For years it was lived in and loved by a dear family friend. But then it was time for her to move on. And just as I was beginning to rethink the cottage’s purpose and possibilities, and refresh its walls and floors and furnishings, the dogs and I collided and I got badly broken. And so I just turned the key on the little cottage door, and turned away. It stood alone for almost a year.
But now, I’ve very slowly gone back to poking around in it again. I decided to start where I had left off – with painting. And for weeks it had splotches of test colors dotting the kitchen cabinets, bedroom walls, bathroom backdrops and closets, even the floors. Only the main living area walls escaped the color experiments. Because only the main living area still sports its original 1950s-era wood panelling on all four walls. In there, it’s all warm and glowing and retro-cozy, as if it were still listening to 45s on the hi-fi. But there are cabinets at the kitchen end of the area, and they got painted first – a soft grey-green color – part library, part garden. Very cottage-y.
I liked the color result so much I thought I’d try a version of it in the bedroom and bathroom as well. I tried other colors, too – mixtures, blends, varying hues. And, after weeks of wavering uncertainty, I told Paul, “just go for it” – using a version of the same color as on the kitchen cabinets in both rooms – with a very soft white on both ceilings.
It rather breaks my DIY heart to have someone else get all up close and personal with my little cottage. There is something about painting the rooms of a house that lets you truly claim it for your own. Like putting a big sloppy kiss on its forehead, leaving lipstick marks behind. So I didn’t watch. I just kept checking in.
I trust handyman Paul completely. He is a wonderful painter. But when I saw the mostly finished walls in both rooms, I actually questioned the paint he had used. (When you stand in the middle of the house, you can literally see into its three rooms at once.) And we both started checking the paint cans again. The colors on the walls looked not just different, they looked as if they weren’t even in the same color family. They weren’t just variations on a theme, they were whistling entirely different tunes. One room to the next, cabinets vs. walls, south vs. north, the colors looked like everything from green to grey to almost shadow blue. Even the ceilings weren’t the same color as they were in the single can – one ceiling looked a grayish-white, one almost pure yellow (in the can, it was cream).
I know what light can do to the appearance of paint colors, but this was beyond anything I’d seen before. And it was indeed all about the light. One room is filled with morning sun, while the other has only artificial light within it. One is all corners and cubbyholes, the other is long and narrow and open one end to the next.
I suspect that much of life is like that, after all. Part of it is twists and turns and corners, while other parts are long views. And how we perceive it is all about the light. Whether it’s a single color or a single event or a single situation, the light that we shine on it can make all the difference – the natural light we allow in, or the light we bring to it ourselves – as well as the darkness in which we may choose to keep it. Even where we are standing as we look at it gives us a different perspective, a different perception, a different color.
I love my little time-worn, freshly kissed cottage, now wearing its new coat of many colors. I suspect it’s because nothing is quite the same in every place and every time I look at it – one wall to the next, one room to the next, one hour to the next. It’s about the joy of variations and shifting moods and interesting personalities and changing clothes and hats – and the almost infinite diversity and possibilities of it all.
I can’t wait to paint the floors.