Finding Victory In A Sea Of Paint Colours

Now that I am a homeowner (or at least, I will be come July 15), I have got to say that I am absolutely excited over moving in.  I mean, this is the first home that I have ever bought.  It means a new era of being able to have somewhere to go that is truly mine.  An era of not having to answer to landlords.  An era of not having to deal with annoying neighbours who honk their car horns at 7:25 every morning or neighbours who sell Thanksgiving dinners to other people in the building for scratch tickets.

(Sadly, this is what I have had to endure the last eleven years.  And when I get settled into my new place and enough time has passed, I may decide to write a tell-all entitled "Behind Closed Doors:  The Horrors Of Apartment Life In A Small Town".)

Of course, some of the perks to being a homeowner is making it your own by doing a variety of different things to it.  And one thing that people can do to give their homes a fresh and modern look is applying a fresh coat of paint to it.

Certainly I will be buying a LOT of paint over the course of the next couple of months.  The exterior of the house is nearly flawless.  All that it requires is a little bit of touch up paint on the porch area and around the windows. 

(Eventually, it will need a new roof, but I don't need paint for that, so I will abstain from talking about the roof until a little later.)

The inside of the house...well, it needs a lot of work!  You walk into the home right now and it's like you stepped back in time to the early 1980s.  But again, it's nothing that a little bit of paint can't fix.  Truth be told, I've already started planning how I'm going to do some of the rooms.

This is the general colour pallette that I am planning on using.  I've always been a bit of a cool colour person, so I plan on using lots of blues and purples.  I may decide to use some green as well, but as of right now, I haven't decided what to do yet.  I'll also be using neutral colours like grey, beige, and white in some areas.  The ones that I have put my own handwriting on are the definite colours that I plan on using (or a close enough match to them anyway).  If all goes well, I may consider a career change!

But one thing that I have noticed about paint is all the different sorts of paint there are.  It's not just your basic white paint anymore.  You have to choose whether you want flat paint, semi-gloss, eggshell, or satin finish.  You also have paint for drywall, paint for metal, paint for siding, and possibly even paint for paint!

And not to mention all of the different colour choices available at your disposal.  I reckon that at the paint counter that I use every day at my job, I can make close to ten thousand paint colours from white to black and everything in between.

And, each colour has its own distinct name.

Now, sometimes the name is quite basic like Sunshine Yellow or Red Rose.  But sometimes you wonder if the good people at Glidden, CIL, or Sherwin Williams consulted the flavour menu at Baskin-Robbins when deciding on what names to bestow upon their paint colours.

Certainly when I was browsing the colour chip wall at work trying to decide what colours I would use for my own home (well, in between customers, that is), I was quite amused at what some of the names of paint colours were.

Let's have a look at some of them, shall we?  You know...just for fun!

ON TOUR TURQUOISE

Now, I have to say...I really like this colour a lot and may consider using it in some manner.  Not quite sure how yet, but I do like it.  That said, what does "On Tour Turquoise" mean?  Given it's a Disney colour, is Mickey and Minnie's RV that colour?  I just don't understand.

EVENING DRAMA

Well, doesn't this colour name just make you want to throw your husband down a flight of stairs, or switch a paternity test, or bitchslap someone into a pool!  Cool colour...dramatic name.  But, I suppose it works.  It is the colour of a primetime sky.

REPTILIAN

I get what they were trying to do with naming this colour, as this is the shade that a lot of reptiles happen to be in nature.  But sadly, whenever I see this colour name, I think of Reptar from Rugrats.

LLAMA WHITE

Here's a llama, there's a llama, and another little llama.  As the name of a paint colour, llama llama SUCKS!

AMERICA'S CUP

Why would the colour be blue?  I would think that it would be gold or silver or bronze or some metallic colour.  Unless America's Cup is really the colour of its jockstrap...

BURNT PUMPKIN

First things first - what an intense colour to paint a room.  Secondly, is this REALLY what colour pumpkin turns when it is set on fire?  I'm pretty confident that anything that gets burned becomes a nice shade of charcoal black.  False advertising!  Oh well...I suppose if the paint doesn't SMELL like burnt pumpkin, you could live with it.

KENTUCKY BLUE

Only it's not blue.  It looks more green to me.  But maybe this is the only colour that is named one thing but looks another...

BLUEGRASS WHITE

Oh, geez, this is even more confusing!

YOU BETCHA BLUE

Yes...you betcha be correct.  It's very blue.  It'd be ironic though if the colour was more like a purple though.  I almost considered using this colour a lot...until I realized that it was the same exact colour of my work uniform.  The less reminders of work I have at my home, the better. 

THE THAMES

Naming paint colours after places is nothing new.  I've seen Toronto Jays Blue, Parisian Purple, and Kentucky Blue (which is really green, but I digress).  But tell me, Londoners.  Is the Thames River REALLY this green?

PENGUIN WALK

I suppose when you have 157 different shades of white, you have to find a way to make one of the most boring colours seem attractive.  And I dare find anyone who can resist a penguin.

RAZZ BERRIES

This is CIL's response to those people whose addiction to texting has prevented them from learning how to spell properly.

RIGHT WHITE

So, tell me.  What makes THIS shade of white the right one over the other 156 shades of white?  Why is this one always the right one?  It may not be the right one for everyone.  Does that mean that if it's not, then it will have to be renamed NOT QUITE WHITE or WRONG WHITE or WRITE-OFF WHITE?

Wait, what?  My head hurts.

FASHION PASSION

Okay, so nothing really is wrong with this colour name.  In actuality, I almost chose this exact shade of purple for one of the accent walls of my new bedroom.  But then I thought about how awkward it would sound when I tell my friends that I have fashion passion splashed all over my walls, and I vetoed this colour almost immediately.

But for someone who still wanted to have dark purple in his room (matching it up with a gray colour called Moonlit Moment), I wanted it to have a masculine name.  A name that was powerful.  A name that matched the joy of finally finding a place to call my very own.

I think this fits.  VICTORY at last!!!