The Paint Wars

Some would say that the truest test to determine the strength of one’s marriage is the birth of a child. This is somewhat true. My husband and I did have our ups and downs as we have raised our children, but apparently we have weathered those storms. But I would say that another source of contention is this…what color to paint the living room. Seriously. Thanks to the ever popular and often quoted book, “Mars vs. Venus,” we know that it is no secret that men and women think differently, and apparently this concept, whether inherently scientific or not, can also be applied to painting the family room. 

For some strange reason, the male species is a varied one on the opinion of paint color. Type 1 husbands or significant others will humbly defer all painting decisions to their wives. The husband merely slaps the stuff on the wall. If the wife complains he can simply say, “It was your decision dear.” This is ideal and wise; however, there is the type two variation who must have a say in every painting decision. He figures he is the expert painter by default and must have a say in what color goes on the wall. My husband belongs to this club. No one could fault him for not expressing himself and it becomes inevitable that we must compromise; thus we, as a couple, have become the bane of paint stores everywhere. 

Paint stores have done nothing to alleviate the Paint Wars between men and women, or couples of any persuasion. In fact, their marketing strategies revolve around and thrive on couple wars. You still must choose from thousands of paint colors as well as a variety of name brands. It’s not just “Country Blue” anymore;” it’s “Just a Hue of Blue,” “Sapphire Surprise,” or “Icy Morning.” How I’d love to be the person behind the desk naming these, but since I’m so disgruntled about too many choices, I might come up with more creative names such “Baby Poop Yellow,” “Booger Green,” or “Barf Brown.” What choices do they have for people who are chronically impaired decision makers as well as perfectionists?  None. On the bright side, they do have samplers for the price of a regular can of paint. You mean I have to buy a can of paint to test it? Yep. At least at Wal Mart they do have paint samplers for a buck, but there might only be three colors to choose from, but definitely not all colors are available.  Geez, thanks.

The first stop for my husband and I upon making our decision to repaint the living room was, ironically, the local Farmers Cashway “Do-it Center.” Before going, I had painstakingly browsed the Valspar website looking for the perfect paint color. I was especially impressed by the “National Trust Historic colors.” Oh my, I could let Martha Washington choose my paint colors! Happy day. I took a photo of my living room, posted it on their Virtual Painter, and Voila, I had the perfect color. But that didn’t quite work as I expected. The puzzled salesperson at the “Doing It Center” had no idea about the colors I had chosen. “We don’t carry that particular line of Valspar paints.” What, may I ask, do you have a website for!?

 In short, we end up buying “Icy Morning,” which looked like a nice, subtle blue. That was easy, wasn’t it? We got it home, put it on the wall and waited for it to dry. It stayed there for a week. A more appropriate name would have been “Icy Blast.” It was sort of like having your first true love. You know, at first we loved it, then we had conflicted feelings about it, and then we hated it passionately. Yes, exactly.

We tried other colors and they all ended up looking as blah as our old color. I asked my sister-in-law, the family style guru, for advice “Why don’t you try some of my paint?” This was a beacon of light. I highly respected her paint color choices in her house. Her advice, “go neutral for the family room.” Oh how wrong was I to think I could paint the room any color I wanted! There must be style considerations and guidelines. I tried my sister-in-law’s colors. They looked great on her walls, not so on mine. She has sunlight; we have cavelight.  It was back to the paint store for us. 

Any time we paint a room together, I end up choosing a light shade, and then my husband, the color inventor, takes it back to get more color put into it. That is how our living room ended up “Brightest Lime,” instead of “Olive Green.” This time, we looked at Sherwin Williams. The Hubby wanted bright, vivid color as always; I wanted subtle color. After much haggling between the two of us, with help from a perpetually perky sales lady with a permanent smile, who was also a pro at not getting involved in marital spats, we ended up going with “Sunrise” with a bit of orange…basically, in a nutshell, beige. Naturally. Is that an end to the paint wars? Not really…never, ladies, go down without a fight!