Beyond the Book: Not What I Expected

 What color is your house? Did you pick the color? If you changed it what color of paint would you pick? (or stain) 

Way back in 1978 my family moved from Virginia to South Carolina. We had one weekend to look for a place to live before we had to go back to Virginia. We looked. A lot. Nothing seemed to suit us, though. My father finally suggested the house across the street from his house. The weather was dreadful that day, but to my surprise the house was very nice. I was impressed that it had two and a half baths. The most we’d had before was one and a half. It had started to snow, but we rushed things and got the paperwork in order. I didn’t have a job when we bought the house, but I was going to school to get my master’s degree so my parents were right across the street to keep my kids when I was in class.

The following fall we decided to paint the house. It had a beige and chocolate brown color scheme, and I didn’t like it. I wanted a gray house. When I was a child I visited some people who lived in a gray house, and I thought it was wonderful. So we picked a nice gray shade for the house and trimmed it in white. It looked great with the brick on the house.I had gotten a job over the summer, and I couldn’t wait for school to end the day the painters came. I stopped in my driveway and gasped. I was too shocked to even get out of the car. This was not the nice gray that I picked. It was blue.There was no way to mistake the color for gray. 

My husband came home from work, and we sat down on the little hill at the end of the yard. Was it awful? Should we make the painter repaint it? It was his fault. I can also assure you that there were only two houses besides mine to have paint other than beige, white, gray, etc. One was yellow and one was pink. 

We waited several days to make up our minds. We finally decided that even though it wasn’t what we wanted we’d just keep it. Our neighbors said they’d never have thought to pain it blue. I imagine a lot of people felt the same way.

Anyway, it still is a nice pastel blue, like something you'd see in the Caribbean.

If I had to redo the paint, I guess I’d pick … Well, frankly I don’t know. There have been so many houses done inside and outside with gray that I’m kind of tired of it. You can’t see the picture well enough to know this, but the brick has a bit of green in it. A nice dark green trimmed in white would be very nice (maybe), but after all this time we’ve grown to really like the the blue. My husband especially likes it. I think he’d have a hissy fit if I told him I wanted to paint it.  

If you were painting your house, what color would you pick?