Painting madness: inspiration

Once upon a time, I worked in a costume shop for a university. We made all of the costumes for every play, musical, dance, and opera that went up on our university's stage. It could be stressful, but we had a blast. I worked with 3 flamingly gay men, which made it all the more interesting. Just me, a drag queen, a couple Bears, and all the fancy, creative costumes you could possibly imagine. How could that not be fun, ya know?

My specialty in the costume shop was hand sewing - or as the boys loved to say "hand jobs". As in, "Hey Mary, I need you to give me a hand job [snicker]". Note that only gay men speaking to their beloved fag hags can get away with this kind of humor. Note also that this never. gets. old.

The reason why I became Queen of the Hand Jobs is because I have meticulous attention to detail. If something needs to be done just so - if you really truly care about the placement of every single stitch - I am your girl. The only drawback is that perfection takes time. Also, there are very few things in stage costuming that require fine detail work (the audience was always at least 20 feet away from our university's stage). And yet, I had this urge to make ALL of my work perfect. Therefore, I was slow. My boss, Robert, learned this sad fact about me. Whenever he gave me a job that needed to be done quickly, he would tell me to be a Speed Demon. If he saw me poking along on my machine on some silly sleeve for a supporting character, Robert would bellow, "I need you to be a Speed Demon, Mary! Speeeeeeed Demon!" & I'd wake up from my reverie of obsessive focus & pick up the pace.

Ah, if only Robert was still in my life now, for I have gotten myself wrapped up into my little perfectionistic world again & I need someone like him to come over, slap me around, and remind me to stop sweating the small stuff.

The small stuff in this case is painting. I know, I know, I picked out paint colors ages ago, right? But getting started on the painting project is scaring me. Paint costs money! Plus, this is Our House - a major investment! And if I spend all of that time preparing the walls and painting and then I don't like the results, then that could affect the value of the house! Plus it's a lot of money & time wasted. Never mind the fact that I'm already wasting a hell of a lot of time agonizing over this. At least I'm not wasting money yet, right?

My biggest hang-up in the paint department - the sticking point that is causing me the most grief - is the kitchen.



Oh, the kitchen. Why must it torture me so. There are lots of things about it that are ugly, but we aren't in a position to change out things right now (well, except for the dead microwave/hood seen in the breakfast nook in these pics. We got rid of that last week). We can paint, though. And boy does this room ever need painting. I hate the blue paint in the kitchen with a loathing that I usually reserve for Jefferson Starship and The Eagles. However, I can't settle on a new color. And seeing as the kitchen is connected to the living room, hallway and dining room, I feel that the color I paint the kitchen has a major influence on the colors I paint the other areas. So of course I can't paint anything in any room until I've nailed down a final color pallet, yes?
Bah.

Anyway. I know this is getting long, so I'm just going to post some inspirational pics. You see, I've been feeling a leaning towards happy, colorful prints for the kitchen. Madness, I know. But the stereotypical yellow kitchen is such a boring cliche & I want to avoid that. I want something a little different. So here are some inspirational pieces that have caught my eye.

First: The sheets I recently bought at Target. Cuter in person, too. If you are smart you will buy some today. Only $20!


Concert poster for everybody's favorite band that features a trumpet, Cake! I don't own this poster, but I'm thinking about getting it despite the fact that I've never been to Milwaukee.


Third, this print from The Black Apple's on-line shop on Etsy. I don't own this yet, but I fully intend to. I've bought other things from Emily before & I think she's super fab.

Lastly, my Le Creuset cookware.

Luckily for me, I do own this. I have 5 pieces of Le Creuset cookware. And I LOVE their gorgeous red color. I have enough storage that they don't need to sit out all the time, but I don't mind at all if one is sitting on the stove just 'cause.

So that's my color story. But what does this say? What should I do? Well, besides paint the kitchen cabinets white (don't go there). Decisions, decisions ...