Instinct Is Not My Thing

The failed experiment of me being impetuous and acting on instinct is now on the bathroom walls and it looks terrible. The Dover White paint I hastily picked out, pretty much looks like white primer in satin on the walls. Along with the white subway tile, and the soon to be white floor tile, the room will probably end up looking more like a place you would hose off lunatics who have soiled themselves again, rather than an elegant Victorian bathroom.

What was I thinking? I spent all of about 2 minutes picking it out, hoping that this impulse method would save me from the agony of needing to once again pick out a paint color. I don’t know why it’s so unpleasant for me, but it just is. It’s not that I’m picky, or maybe I am, who knows. I just like what I like, and lot’s of color is something I really don’t like in my house. I think I’m afraid it will ending up looking like a clown house or something. No offense to clowns.

I was trying to avoid green once again, because I have a green house and a green kitchen, and I don’t want the whole house to be green. I think green is a nice color for kitchens and baths, and I do have a lot of house yet to be painted, so maybe it’s too early for me to give up on green. There was a “Show me your living room” thread over at The Old House Web last week and there were a surprising number of green living rooms. It got me to wondering if green is to the Two-Thousands, what orange and yellows were to The Seventies. Will people look back 20 years from now and think, “What was with all of the green”?

So I’ve learned a valuable lesson, instinct is not for me. I need to think, over think, deliberate, and obsess over a decision like this. As uncomfortable as it is, it’s something I must endure. Either way, it seems, the experience is unpleasant. Either I obsess over it and eventually – hopefully – pick the right color, or I “instinctually” pick the wrong color and then obsess over the mistake. It’s a lose-lose situation.

So, it’s pretty much $35 of Dover White paint down the drain, or maybe, over the cliff might be more appropriate. The trouble is, I’m not sure it’s in the budget this pay-period to buy another gallon of paint. I bought the new marble vanity, the slabs of redwood, the crown molding, and shipped a heavy package of cast iron and brass down to LA to have some things nickel plated. Oh, and I go to the dentist tomorrow and I don’t have dental insurance, so that’s another out-of-pocket expense.

I may be stuck with this Dover White for a week or two. I’ll hide the still almost full gallon and if anybody asks, I’ll say it’s primer on the walls.