an affair to remember

I have to admit it. I've taken a lover. Well, three: Pratt, Lambert, and Benjamin Moore. I'm such a naughty girl, but I can't break their hold over me. The affair started so long ago...

I loathe cleaning, only do laundry when I've absolutely run out of clothes, and cook in fits and spurts, but I will happily repaint everything every week. Maybe even every day. Walls, ceilings, trim, lawn furniture, the front of the dishwasher, the ugly floral kitchen tiles left over from the previous owner...you name it, I'll paint it. My methods: oil, latex, acrylic, spray can, brush, roller, rag, sponge, fingers, whatever works for the job. But I think I love painting walls the most. There's something so gratifying about staking your claim, about covering over vast expanses of the old with something fresh. It just feels like progress when sometimes nothing else does. Like the D.I.Y. equivalent of getting a new haircut after a break-up. And I love the fiddly masking off and cutting in. And the color. And the intoxicating off-gassing smell. But my obsession is likely more a statement of my fickle nature than of a creative temperament and a desire to be stoned on toxic paint fumes. That, and I like to get all paint splattered and messy.

It should be no surprise then that, since I have plenty of other things to do, I suddenly feel inspired to paint the studio foyer. I've been putting it off for a couple years because I really should repair the plaster walls first. I'm afraid to find out how bad they are under the existing cracked coat of faux stucco though; it may be the only thing holding up the whole room. (Yes, preservation friends, I should know better and I'm a bad doobie; I promise to say a few Hail Clem Labines and talk smack about vinyl to atone for my sins.)

And so, earlier this week, after nearly a year of resisting the urge, I was called back to my old loves in the paint aisle of the Clark's (an awesome, local, family-owned hardware store). We're still in the test pot stage, but our future looks promising.