January 27, 2019 – The color of paint . . .

         It took forever to get the right color of paint for this project.  When I mentioned I couldn’t find what I wanted a friend said,

         “You do know that if you find something the color you want – the paint store will match it with a computer eye thing.”

         “I didn’t know that!”

         She looked at me like I’d been living under a rock, but then, she is in the know – she has flipped at least a dozen houses by now and is extremely accomplished at doing it.  She has always had me come see the “before” and then I get to see it in the “middle” and then at the “end” and trust me, I am always impressed.

         I couldn’t do that much - too stressful.  I am just doing a new flooring, fresh baseboard and painting and I have a high stress level which is enough for me working alone.

         Back to the paint:  Occasionally I have been in rooms that are the softest of a pale yellow.  In the last few weeks I have been wracking my brain thinking – where was it I admired the paint.

         Just now, coming back from funeral visitation hours, I now can tell you that the chapel at Padgett & King funeral home in Forest City, North Carolina, has that lovely yellow on the walls and also has those white plantation shutters under arched windows up both sides of the chapel flanking the wooden pews.  The yellow paint is fresh, lovely, and actually cheerful, a good thing for a funeral chapel.

         One day last week, I took a stick of butter in its wax paper wrapper to a paint store and they had their electronic eye look at it to come up with a color.  I spent about $8 on the pint sample it produced.  It looked great “wet” but when I went to paint the wall with the sample – GASP – looked like a golden brown paper bag.  Too much gold color, not enough white. MUDDY! I rolled a two by four foot patch on each wall of the room and let it dry.  It looked awful wet and even worse dry.

         At that point, I complained to someone else and they said to me,

         “I mix my own.”

         “Come again, how do you do that?”

         “I take my hobby paint set and start with white and then add a drop of whatever color I am going for and play with it until I get what I want – or close to it.  Then I take that to the paint store and try to match up a chip.  It’s the store lights that are the problem.”

         I pondered it a while and I slept on it trying to remember where I had shoved my hobby paints. In the morning, I took her sage advice.

         After coffee and while the sun was shining into my room, I mixed up two batches.  One was white acrylic paint with a drop of acrylic yellow – good gosh – instant yellow school bus.  I painted another patch on the wall, it was closer to what I wanted – but still nowhere near a stick of butter when I carried it out to the wall and held it up without the wax wrapper for comparison.

         Then, I tried another batch – white acrylic, but this time I used watercolor paint in it – YEAH – they aren’t supposed to mix, but that Artist’s Water Colour 087 Cadmium Yellow Pale mixed perfectly fine with enough white acrylic to give me the shade of a good quality butter.  I stroked a patch on all four walls and said, “YES!”

         I didn’t wait for it to dry . . . I painted a 3 x 5 card with the shade of yellow and shoved it in a plastic Ziploc. I went directly to the store.  I found three or four paint chips almost close.  I took those to the exit door and held them in the natural light and found one that seemed perfect.  I bought a half-pint of it and came home.

         Again, I painted the two by four foot patches on all four walls using the entire half pint of paint.  Yes, more like it, I said to myself when it was wet and then I waited until morning.  “YES exactly what I want.”

         Finally, I found the color – for those with curious minds, it is Valspar, Yellow Bliss – and is very close to the color of a yellow sticky note and “spot-on” with my butter sample.

         Today I started painting.  I am out of practice – muscle wise, so I decided I’d paint only one wall and then wait to do a larger wall tomorrow.  I tackled the smallest wall – but the most difficult one – the one with the computer connections and all the electrical  and telephone outlets. 

         No, I did not unplug all the cables and wires again. I worked around the abundance of cords and cables and wires.  Yes, I feel it in my arms and shoulders and I know I can’t overdo. 

         There is this thing called fibromyalgia that I am all too familiar with - overdoing one day and not being able to do anything for three days – so I have to pace myself.  I have found that if I work one long workday I need to take two or three break days to recover versus working one short workday makes for several continuous short workdays in row. 

         It is a case of the tortoise getting to the finish line without having to lie down and die of exhaustion.