Elemental Grace

To Paint or Not to Paint, THAT is the question…

October 30, 2009

In getting the kitchen sorted out post-flood, my attentions have rather wandered from the rest of the house, which is nagging me and sending occasional reminders my way that it could cheerfully do with a little attention. It’s the decorating curse: once you have one room as you want it, all the others look shabby by comparison. It grows and grows until you are locked into a situation like the Severn Bridge where by the  time it’s finished, it’s time to start again. *sigh*

Although there is plenty to be done in the bedroom, my attention has particularly been grabbed by the living room. Since I put up my new curtains (the ones I made myself), it has struck me how drab the rest of the room looks in comparison. There are, somewhat accidentally, a lot of brown and neutral tones in the room and it’s coming out a little bland.The walls are cream, the carpets a mottled beige, the sofas are brown corduroy,the bookcases are a dark cream and I have a lovely teak blanket box that sits in the middle of the room.

Bland has never been an accusation to be levelled at me, and I have no intentions of letting it begin now! It all began when the bookcases were painted cream instead of the pale blue I requested. Since they were already a month late, I was just too overjoyed to have them to be worried about their colour. They slid into place like a dream and have been settling in there ever since.

So, in my ambitions to cheer things up a bit, I am debating what colour to paint the walls. The question was never whether I should paint the walls or not, as the answer to that is clearly obvious but colour is the matter in question. It looks beautiful in the kitchen, despite all my doubts and fears about putting colour on the walls in old houses (well, they ALWAYS seem to be painted cream. I thought there might be some kind of etiquette forbidding you from painting them fun colours!). I don’t think I’d want to paint the walls the same colour as the kitchen, maybe a touch paler so you just get a hint of colour and a little something from a different colour palette to highlight the other blues in the room.

I am painting a number of cheap ikea picture frames in bold colours  and they should bring out and contrast with the other shades in the room. Some are bright, shocking pink, some in a bold turquoise, and others in a classic duck egg blue. I am doing my second degree reiki course in a fortnight, so hopefully it should be another thing for the wall in an exciting coloured frame. Woo!

So questions, questions. If you were going to brighten up my living room, what would YOU do?

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