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.
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