For the past week, ever since we officially became home owners, we have been dividing our days between painting the new house, packing the old house, going to work, and hanging out with our somewhat-on-edge (and understandably so) children. Every day feels like a crazy run around of not enough time. But when I'm actually painting, fiddle music blasting in the background, wearing my paint-covered carhartts, rolling the roller up and down one wall after another, I find I have more time to think than I have in a while.
Today I was thinking--as I worked on painting the sky-half of the playroom (the bottom half will be the ocean, the top half the sky)--that painting is kind of like parenting, in a way. Or at least, I realized that the way Lena and I approach painting a house is similar to the way we approach parenting. Like how when we realized--several times--that the colors we thought would be perfect for certain rooms in our new house were actually pretty terrible (to the extent that my mother literally gagged when she saw how we had initially painted our living room), we simply painted over them with new colors. We didn't wallow in our poor choice or wasted time. We moved forward with a new plan. It reminded me of the time when we decided to try training the 3-year-old versions of Luke and Jaz to sleep in their own beds, in their own room, through the night. When they woke up and called for us, we'd go to them and try to get them back to sleep, but we didn't let them come into our bed to sleep with us. It seemed like a great idea. But after about a week of this, we realized that we were getting way less sleep than we had been before, and we decided to paint over that parenting choice and go back to having the kids join us in our bed in the night, if they so desired (which they did, and still do, for the most part). Because we make the rules and we can change the rules. Just like we can choose the paint colors and we can pick different colors if it seems our original choices aren't working out. Painting, just like parenting, is a huge amount of work, but the rewards are so, so sweet.
Clearly, the ("virtually non-existent") paint fumes have gone to my head a bit.
Some end results of the color-choosing drama:
the living room on the left, the dining room on the right
a corner in the kids' bedroom
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5 comments:
Gorgeous! I can't wait to see more pictures. I wish I had a sky and ocean bedroom growing up, it sounds so lovely. And I love the deep thoughts on painting/parenting.
The pictures of your house are beautiful. I love the orange door!
Also, your post spoke just to what my heart needed to hear this morning. Whether it's parenting or something else, if we find something isn't working, we too try wallow in our poor choice or wasted time but make a change. In the last few days I've been having a hard time with that. We've made the change, but I've been wallowing a bit. As I read your post, I felt a sense of lightness come over me (hopefully it's not those "virtually non-existent" fumes :-)) and I thought yes, "Because we make the rules and we can change the rules." Thank you for reminding my heart of this!
I hope your packing and moving goes smoothly.
How lovely to paint over the old and make this home new to you. It's a wonderful beginning. I hope that your family finds much happiness in your new home.
I would love to come and hold a smiley baby but I think I'm on the other side of the country.
gosh, i love the inside as much as i loved the outside. you know, from the pictures, i didn't expect as much light inside as i see in these pictures....very lovely. also you have an orange-y color on the door in the pictures...what color is that? i am looking for just the right color for a rather dark dining room....
and...if only you lived closer...i would love to hold your smiley baby :-) -kim
Not *only* do I accept the metaphor, I love the paint colors so far (although now you have me really curious about the allegedly "pretty terrible" colors--we recently painted our play room blue-then-orange-then-purple, so I certainly know how that goes). I particularly like the boys' room.
Enjoy your move--if not the move *itself,* the knowledge that you won't be doing it again for a very long time!
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