I am extremely well behaved, thanks to my grandmother, but I’m not quiet. I have lots of ideas and strong opinions and big eyes and my dad’s loud voice and babies love me because I show so much emotion in my face.
But when I put the paint I’d chosen on the wall today, I felt positively insipid.
Vermont Cream is a lovely off white – not too yellow, not pinkish, just rich and – well, creamy. And the room we’re painting is small – 10‘ x 13’ – so lighter seemed right. The ceiling, of course, is flat white and the trim will be shiny white because I’m me and even though I briefly considered painting the ceiling sky blue I could not bring myself to actually do it. And in my mind, white + white + cream with some subtle teal, blue, green and gold undershading in the texture looked perfect.
I started off with the texturing – using a sponge to rub different colors into the texture and then using a damp paper towel to wipe most of it off.
Teal, applied with sponge
Teal, rubbed back with damp paper towel
So far, so good. But when I applied the Vermont Cream it looked like a very pale imitation of the picture in my mind. In fact it reminded me of the mousy brown hair I used to have before I decided I was not a mousy brown person and started dying it red. Blech.
Vermont Cream turned out to be a mousy brown color
What to do? Put on my Pitidoe hat, of course. First, I took about a quart of that boring old Vermont Cream and added about a cup of Spring Mist, a lovely perky green I had left over from all the color samples I bought for the exterior. Then I added a good squeeze of deep-tint yellow to make it pop. So a bright spring-greeny-yellow got sponged over the whole thing, which brightened it up a LOT. Too much, in fact.
So then I took some flat white and added two different colors of medium blue (also leftover samples) and about a cup of water to make a glaze. That got rubbed over the greeny yellow in a thin coat. to knock it back.
My underwater world
It’s pretty cool – it looks like you’re underwater, or maybe inside a plant. And as far as I’m concerned, any day that ends with trying to wash paint out of your hair is a good day.
