Color Hell

Hell isn’t the color of lava or fire. It’s Spice Delight PWL-81 from the Behr catalog or Dynasty Celadon PPL-80. It doesn’t really matter the hue. Milton said “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” Color can do that too.

“I’m not afraid of color.” That’s what I told Paul who was going to paint the inside of our house. I was so sure of myself, cocky even. My expectations soared! I had looked at remodeling magazines with pictures of warm family rooms, golden retriever asleep by fireplace. Color can create that. Ruddy walls with white trim? An artist lives here! Pale blue next to butter yellow? A woman at peace with herself. Now this, I thought, is going to be fun!

The workers had done such a beautiful job: the walls were so smooth you just wanted to eat them. No texture, just clean and white, a wedding cake. But beware the blank slate. It’s possible to over think things.

“What do you think of Scotland Road? It’s a pretty green.”

“Ooo, yeah, with a white trim. Very nice. Soothing.”

“But is it too dark?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. What do you think? Depends on where it is. Let’s get a tester.”

"What about cornmeal?"

"Nice! Too yellow, though?"

"Get a tester."

"Blue agave?"

"Tester!"

And so it went on and on until the swatches were slipping from our fingers and we needed to get a cart for the testers.

My son, Harry, didn’t have that problem. He walked straight to the Martha Stewart section, picked the color “Calabash”, and said “I want this one”. Done and done.

There is always something to learn from your children. Harry went from the gut. He didn’t hem and haw over how this color would make him feel, how it would go with other colors, whether it was introverted or extroverted, uninhibited or solemn. It pleased him, so he chose it. And it looked great.

We, on the other hand, painted little squares of testers on every wall of the house, labeling each with a light pencil, until the whole house looked like a quilt made from the loving hands of home. Our confusion began here and it only got worse. We brought in other people, looked at more books, thought about color, talked about it, painted more colors, and repainted over them. And our disappointment grew.

Describing color is like describing taste. You compare it to something else, an image or a feeling, like poetry. I’ve always loved that scene in Brideshead Revisited where Sebastian and Charles are tasting different wines and after having had a few begin to describe them in loftier terms:

“It is a little, shy wine like a gazelle”

“Like a leprechaun”

“Dappled, in a tapestry meadow”

“Like a flute by still water.”

“And this is a wise old wine”

“A prophet in a cave.”

“And this is a necklace of pearls on a white neck.”

“Like a swan”

“Like the last unicorn."

We wanted the last unicorn and, damn it, it wasn’t there!

In the end, my husband left town.

“I trust your sense of color. You pick them.”

I did. I can’t say it wasn’t some part of agony. I relearn my lessons over and over. But they look good. And really, what’s the problem? We have a house and walls. Isn’t that enough!