Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Tonight, I fulfulled a longtime ambition. I painted the walls of a room. Not a room in my own Crypt, but that's beside the point.

When I was in high school, my friend Jewels decided to paint her room green. And for some reason, maybe I was sick or on a family vacation or something, I didn't get to help her. Freestargirl did, but I didn't. And it seemed like the coolest thing ever to be able to paint your walls a color other than some variant of white.

Growing up in a pastor's family, I always lived in parsonages. And the walls of the parsonages were invariable white or off-white, because before a new pastor came to a church, the congregation would paint the walls of the parsonage. But who knows what colors the new pastor's furnishings will be, right? So paint the walls white, because white goes with everything. Makes total sense, but because the house didn't belong to us and had just been freshly painted anyway, my dad would never let us repaint any rooms. I could put up posters and hang pictures to my heart's content, but not paint the walls.

So when Jewels painted her room grass green, there was born in me the great desire to paint walls. It seemed like such a fulfilling activity, seeing the new color take over the blank blah-ness of the old white walls. The whole concept of the paint roller fascinated me. I used to walk through the paint aisles in home improvement stores or hardware stores and imagine opening a can, pouring it out into a pan, and rollering it onto the walls. But I never got to.

I almost had the chance to paint walls when my parents moved into a new parsonage the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. They were staying at the same congregation but moving into a different house, and the whole thing needed to be repainted. Sure, my dad insisted it all be painted white or off-white so that the next pastor wouldn't be stuck with mauve walls or whatever, but it still would have been exciting. Except they managed to schedule every single painting session for the exact times and days that I was working at my summer job. Room after room got painted, and I had nothing to do with any of it.

So now, ED just bought a house and is in the process of repainting nearly every room. I went over there tonight and she and I primed and painted her guest bedroom. We painted it this greyish purple color (more purple than grey) called Phoenix. And it was awesome. It was every bit as fun as I'd imagined :-D

3 comments:

  1. I still think it's funny how all the painting opportunities seemed to happen without you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. And the one at ED's house almost didn't happen either, due to me not being up to going two weeks ago. She was sweet and saved this room for us to do together. Other people have been coming over to help her paint the rest of the house.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ahh yes, parsonages and the ever white walls hehe. The one my parents are in now has wallpaper though. Nothing flashy though some of it is old.

    Painting walls is awesome! I'd like to do it at our house but we can only use wallpaper I guess since it's a rental and there is wallpaper on the walls already. Poo. Maybe the next house.

    ReplyDelete

Agree or disagree? That is the question...

Comments on old posts are always welcome! Posts older than 7 days are on moderation to dissuade spambots, so if your comment doesn't show up right away, don't worry -- it will once I approve it.

(Rudeness and vulgar language will not be tolerated.)