I Dream of Lisa LaPorta...

Ok...so, really, any of the DIY designers would do at this point...or even just some input from my brother who is a designer for a living would be nice.

You see, I read the post by my friend Ang, and was so jealous that her snowballing dream became a reality, and she is partway done with the Great Redesign of 2008 at her house.

I have 5 rooms in my house that I would love to do something with, or that need the final finishing touches and details. My dining room is the color I want, but sadly, needs window treatments, and some art placed on the walls. Actually, I have the art...my darling Mom made a beautiful wall-hanging quilt, and all I need to do is get it on the stinking wall!

The living room has some interesting cracks around one of the windows that need fixed, but then I would have to repaint the wall, which happens to be 16 feet high where it meets the ceiling. And then I run into the problem of do I paint all the walls in the living room, or make that exterior window wall an accent wall? Are accent walls gauche? Retro? Sooooo 90's? Add to that the issue that there is really only one wall that I consider a "wall"...it goes from floor to ceiling with no wonky angles or artistic arch ways etc. It does, however, house 3 tall narrow windows that are currently sporting some Hunter-Douglas brand Sillhouette blinds that are stained and ripped from the previous owners' 2-year-old daughter that used to climb up onto her stepstool and chew on the blinds...Can you say EWWWWWW! I have another gorgeous wall-hanging quilt that, you guessed it, darlingest of mothers made for us to be hung on the wall above my piano. I love the colors in the quilt, and the colors that will commit me to. They are soothing, and earthy without being too bland or nuetral. I don't think they are dated...but could be wrong.

From there, we move into the upstairs, where my master bedroom has an unmatched set of furniture, which bothers me to no end, and which BB does not understand the importance of. But really, in my mind, we've been married for 6 years...don't you think at some point that we could graduate from the furniture we grew up with to something that says "We picked this out together for our bedroom." ???? At any rate, without replacing furniture, which won't happen unless we win the Powerball, I'd like to paint the walls...something rich and luxurious, like plum with accents of brown, green, maybe throw in some ivory just because. The issue? BB doesn't want to hurt my mom's feelings...you see, the year before Captain Chaos came to be, she worked her fingers bloody, hand-quilting a traditional star quilt for our king-sized bed...and it is done in one of her favorite color combinations of shades of rusty reds and creams. It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, we sleep under it in the summer, when our comforter is too heavy, but all my accent pillows are the same colors. I have always been drawn to colors from the wrong side of the color wheel where my mother is concerned. When she wanted me to have pinks and blues (all "country" shades of course), I wanted peach and mint green. When she caved and said I could decorate my room in whatever colors I wanted, I surprised her by picking out cotton candy pink, baby green, and baby blue...good thing she hadn't started quilting at that point, or I'd have been stuck with country blue and peach in my quilt!

But I digress...I just can't stomach the thought of putting the quilt away for a season or two, paint my walls in shades of purple, buy some groovy fabric to cover the exisiting pillow that we own...because you see, my comforter is putty. Yup, it is putty-colored, with matching blah pillow shams. The walls through the entire freaking house were painted this incredibly boring shade of "coffee with cream" (my mother's way of making it sound less boring than it appeared). While better than plain white, it is still pretty darn close and that drives me nuts! I'm not talking paint the walls neon, or even dark colors...just some other color!

SO...my master bedroom needs a serious makeover...as does the guest room. The kids' rooms are about 90% done. They need some fun art on the walls, and in the case of Captain Chaos, we have some cool die-cut cars and racing flags to be hung...it just hasn't happened because of BB's insane fear of wall-paper...

I have dreams of navy and barely blue in the guest room. Again...I have all the bedding, and even have window treatments in there. But the walls...oh the walls!!!!

Who would ever have guessed that Cafe Latte walls would drive me to insanity. When we go to the home improvement store, I stand in the paint department, awed by the array of all those glorious colors...waiting to be picked up and considered...and I pick up paint chips by the dozen...blues, greens, yellows, reds, browns, oranges...I even, just for fun one day, picked up the Crayola line at Home Depot, and seriously considered asking them to mix me a gallon of Macaroni & Cheese colored paint...not that I'd do something that drastic...

You see...for the first 5 years of our marriage, BB was anti-color. His bachelor home was Builders' Basic Off-White. In fact, BB even had the leftover 5 gallon bucket in his basement from the paint contractor, who had decided that schlepping around 1 gallon of paint in a 5-gallon bucket was too much work. So he bought a paint can, wrote on it the brand and color code and lovingly placed it in his basement for "touch-ups"...he hates dark finish on furniture, and window treatments beyond blinds. I blame MIL for this crazy affectation of his...growing up in NJ, she had a typical house...heavy draperies at the windows, which were small and few. Heavy, dark furniture. Her mother never opened up and let in the sunshine...don't know why...but there it is. SO...when MIL grew up and got her own house, she fell in love with (shudder) California comtemporary...which was during the height of the hideous bull-nosed corners, the light oak, the no hardware on anything...she had no curtains, only mini-blinds, on windows...and has never liked anything other than blue...all her things are shades of blue...from a drop of blue to a gallon of paint for their walls, to blue-toned carpet...she says "earth-tones"...but really, she has shades of white...SO...therefore, when BB grew up and bought his house, in true bachelor style, he said "I like this" because it was what his mother had, not because he had given any thought to anything different.

The result? Hideous, cheap furniture, no color on the walls, and mini-blinds on the windows. To tell you how bad it really was - he had vinyl vertical blinds on his sliding glass door when I met him...

SO...after the last almost-9-years of our being in each others' lives, I have finally convinced him to give me carte blanche with color.

So what is stopping me you ask? He won't let me spend money right now...so I have "permission" to paint colors, but no budget! I asked him how much I could spend on paint and things for the "finishing" of the house and he told me $100. I said per room? and he said No. Total.

I laughed. Hard. Until I cried. And then I realized he was serious. We're talking $100 for 5 rooms...needing window treatments, art, curtain rods, and at least 5 gallons paint. I don't think I can buy 5 gallons of paint for $100, let alone material or pre-made curtains...

OY!!!!!!