Today, I'm answering another question from the meme passed on by Sara Louise from Sara in Le Petit Village. Nice person. Good blogger. Meme whose question must be answered in essay form.
Today's question: What was my worst decorating faux pas?
I don’t think I’ve ever made a faux pas, as such. I’m not that type of guy. I “blow it,” or “fuck-up.” Or, “ruin everything.” A faux pas seems a little too subtle for me. My mistakes make noise.
So, my biggest decorating fuck-up. Well . . .
There is every bedroom I ever had into my mid-twenties. Just a big salad of dirty laundry and papers and shoes and and broken headphones and milk crates for the croutons and who knows what sick soup of fluids for the dressing.
There are also the half-dozen delicate glass oil lamps my wife was given over the first decade I knew her. They stopped coming because I smashed every one of them. In less than 24 hours. One barely made it out of the box. It turned to dust at my loving caress. You could tell they were quality pieces because they disintegrated upon immediate contact with the floor. I am the Lord of Chaos.
Then . . . it was Valentine’s day. Pre-babies. She went to work. I banged in sick. We had an office in those carefree days of enough room, and she said on more than one occasion she’d love if it were painted in a warm pumpkin tone.
My plan was to paint it for her before she got home as a Valentine’s present.
I went to Home Depot and agonized over the color choices. I don’t remember the names, but I remember I did choose one with pumpkin in the title.
I lied to myself a lot that day. Kept telling myself it was pumpkin.
It was macaroni and fucking cheese. Not homemade either; the processed stuff. Yellowy, orangey, shiny.
So, instead of a cozy, autumnal, pumpkin-spiced office to snuggle into when she got home, my wife was put on lock down inside a block of Velveeta. Stouffer’s State Penitentiary.
She lied and told me she loved it. I bought it. I had to. She sat in that Krafty ol’ office for 2 years before we moved.
And that is the story of the love of a good woman.
Decoratively,
Homemaker Man
Good woman for sure. We once tried to paint a tiny room red. about 1/4 of the way through Mrs. LIAYF told me it looked like blood. Like a band of gypsies was slaughtered in there. I pressed on, denying that it did. So we finished, I looked at it and shook my head, then we repainted a different color. Yellow, I think.
ReplyDeleteI had the EXACT SAME EXPERIENCE as SeattleDad. Well, okay... not exact: I was only halfway through the room when my wife walked in and said, "Why are the walls covered in blood?"
ReplyDeleteWhich is why the room is now lavender.
Anyhow. Funny as hell. As usual.
So your boy really should be named Mac & Cheese Man because he, you know, got his start there, right?
ReplyDeleteI love it! A krafty room of mac n' cheese! lol she sure does love you!
ReplyDeleteWe tried for a warm terracotta in the basement and ended up with an orange-y pink salmon. We moved, too. It seemed easier than trying to paint it again.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be as soon as we attempt to try our hand at decorating we seem to come up short. But, at least we try and we are still loved for trying.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great woman. I don't have decorating screw ups because I am in no way shape or form involved in decorating our house unless you count hanging things exactly where my wife tells me to. Of course I have decorated the garage with my deer horns. They aren't allowed in the house.
ReplyDeleteWe've been in our house 10 years and the walls are still plain. It looks like we live in a federal safe house. Long story short, I may have paused while reading this to imagine macaroni and cheese walls in my living room and it was good.
ReplyDeleteWhite walls here. We spent a small fortune to get our bedroom painted the best freakin' shade of ocean blue with with ceiling only to have ice dams once the ice had dried. The room's been empty for 2 years.
ReplyDeleteLittle bit of hurricane-ness happens here whenever we make an attempt to paint or accessorize.