Paint It Black

Remember the new addition we’re putting on our house? Andrew has been itching to get busy with things—there have been a few delays but we’re set to have the contractor start next week. So itchy in fact that Saturday morning he suddenly woke up at 7 am, stretched, jumped out of bed all chipper-like and announced he was getting ready to “paint the house." His exact words.

I might have said something not too polite as I rolled over but sure enough when I finally dragged myself out of bed there he was, scraping away at the side of the house.

Scruncha-scruncha-scruncha and paint flakes were flying.

“Uh, what are you doing?” I said, doubtfully.

“I’m scraping the house.”

“Okaaaaaay . . .”

We’ve been in our house almost seven years and we’ve tackled our fair share of home improvement projects and for not being a handy man Andrew’s pretty good at handy-type stuff. He put down our laminate flooring on the main level, replaced all our windows and patio doors (including making these gorgeous fancy windowsills) and has generally proved to be a fabulous investment on my part.

But the last time we did anything I remembered him saying something about never ever ever ever ever ever EVER doing another project again, that he wanted to enjoy his summers and refused to be chained to a table saw and tool belt ever again. Something like that.

So I took him at his word and when we looked at remodeling it was with the assurance that we’d hire someone else to do everything so that Andrew could go catch those fish or train for his marathon or whatever guyish things he wanted to do without the fear of being nagged into submission by his wife.

BUT . . . when the bids came in and we were staring at cold, hard numbers 30% higher than we’d anticipated we had to economize by figuring out what we could do ourselves to get that price back down to where we could actually breathe again.

Suddenly Andrew (who’s been so excited about this whole thing that he can hardly sleep—seriously, I don’ t think he was this eager for the birth of our children as he has been for the addition on the house) started saying, “Hey, I can do that!” right and left until he now has plans to do all the demolition, painting and landscaping himself.

Which brings me to Saturday morning. He'd decided that since we were on schedule for construction he might as well get a jump on things by painting and it would be easier to paint the whole thing before the addition was finished so he would have less taping and prepping by ignoring the parts that were to be demolished.

So there he was, scraping the house and humming his tunes and having a grand old time.

I really didn’t take him that seriously, I figured we’d paint whenever and it wasn’t any rush or anything but the next thing I knew he was off to buy paint.

“Whoa there Bessie,” I said. “So what color are ‘we’ painting the house?”

Whereupon he whips out The Color Chip. You see, back when we were in the design phase with Bruce Williams over at Black + White he’d presented us with the exterior materials along with some color chips that were his first choices. They were all the same color, just different shades, and for some reason seeing them next to the other materials on his desk they just looked good and we really liked the combination. We both quickly, confidently and at the same time pointed to the darkest chip saying “That one!” while Michael Gerace, Bruce’s assistant, smiled and said, “That was my favorite too!”

With that kind of validation we just went on and never really thought more about it. We’ve been busy with other decisions and issues and it wasn’t until Andrew started mumbling about buying paint that I really gave the color any further thought. As in “Is this color really the one that I want to present to the world as a first impression of my soul?”

So what color is it? Black. Yes black. Black Monday, black market, black widow, Black Sabbath, Black Death—black. It’s one thing to look at a pile of colors and pick out one that goes well with the materials you’ll be using and then it’s another thing entirely to hold it up in front of your face, squint one eye and imagine an entire structure covered in it.

I know we'd picked it out but suddenly when I was put to the fire and Andrew was hyperventilating in excitement to get his hands on a sprayer I felt my previous confidence disappear and all I could see was one big Black House.

I mean who paints a house black? Seriously? Isn’t it reserved for haunted houses and hearses and crematoriums—I’m pretty sure it states somewhere in the municipal code that you cannot, under any condition, paint your house black. Who cares if it looked good in the architect’s office?

“What?” I said “Black? You’re going to paint it black?”

“It’s not black,” he said, flipping the card over jauntily and pointing to the words on the back. “It’s French Beret.”

“What?”

“French Beret.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Nope, I like it.”

“Well I did too before but picture a whole house in it.” We weren’t even going to use another color for the trim or doors, it was to be all one color.

“I have and it’s going to look terrific!”

“But nobody paints a house black!”

“I told you, it’s not black. I think it’s going to surprise people at first but then once the addition is built they’ll never notice it again.”

“Oh yea, they’ll be surprised all right—who knew that Gomez and Morticia were moving into the neighborhood?”

“No really, it’s going to look good—“

“Oh and here’s an idea—why don’t we paint the trim red and maybe let the paint drip down a little for that little extra House o' Death look?”

“Okay now you’re just being silly.”

But he’s serious about the black and went out and bought all the paint and is probably spraying away as you read this—unless the heavens combined against us to stop the abomination and sent rain. It’s supposed to be darkest charcoal but I'm afraid it’s just black and is going to freak the neighbors like nothing else. I tell you if we were to leave dead voodoo chickens in the yard I doubt it would be less effective in saying “Be afraid, be very afraid.”

So why don't I stop him you ask? It's true I do wield the absolute veto in the matter and if I threw a fit he'd back off but he's so excited about the color. Tell me, when was the last time your husband got that thrilled about a paint chip? Hard to squash that kind of happiness isn't it? Plus there's a tiny part of me that wonders if maybe Bruce and Andrew were right and my initial gut reaction was right and it's going to look stunning. Well maybe "stunning" isn't the word I should use.

Oh and by the way, it's also dawned on me that when Andrew paints he’s only painting the parts that will remain, not the parts that will be demolished so not only will we have a black house but until the whole thing is finished we’re going to have a black house pock-marked with gray highlights around the front door and upper story windows.

Oh how the neighbors will love us. Especially the ones right across the street who just put their house up for sale—this will probably lower their home value by $50,000 just in one weekend.

Updated to ad: Thanks to ames at Yay Pie! I now have a Photoshopped representation of my new "Goth House" (her words). Though I'd point out the trim will also be "French Beret" it actually looks better than I thought--though that paint chip color on the monitor sure looks a lot lighter than it does in my hand. . . .

Sponsored by The Fine Art of Family--Jewelry by artist Monica Rich Kosann

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