Metal Meredith

I am just not cut out for beige.

Since we have now decided to sell our house and find something bigger and a little more user friendly, I have begun the transformation from �house I love� to �house someone else will want�. And, it�s killing me.

I spent this weekend painting over my beautiful Mediterranean Blue dining room and covering it with this light beige color. It�s sad, boring and flat. This was the last room painted in this house. I spent many weeks with paint chips taped to the walls. Each time I would walk through the room, I would look at them and try to imagine a room entirely one color or another.

Soon, I began to pull a few off here and there until only one was left, my lovely blue. Then, I filled the room with prints with red as the prominent color. I got red cushions for the chairs, put up lime green curtains on a rod made from galvanized steel pipe. We changed the ugly dangling chandelier into brushed silver track lighting. Ahhh, our little modern art gallery. I was so proud.

For 5 years this room was used every way possible, a sitting room, an extra living room, a pantry, and an office for both Phil and I (each at separate times). When Vivienne was born, it became a multipurpose computer/ dining room. Phil and I used Christmas money to get a proper table and chairs. We moved everything else out and set up the highchair.

This weekend, I spent my evening using primer to cover old carrot baby food stains and high chair scuff marks. I scrubbed tiny hand prints off of window sills near the place where Vivienne has eaten for over a year now. I did my best not to sob the entire time.

I know that it must be done. In fact, I get almost giddy when I start thinking about having a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, and possibly a real laundry room. These are luxuries I haven�t had in 15 years. I want them so badly. But what I give up is my first home. The house Phil and I bought, got engaged and married in. I was proposed to on the sofa, Easter Morning in 2000. We had our baby here. She probably won�t even remember it and that hurts. So many things have happened in these rooms.

Will the next people appreciate it? Will they realize how cool the giant long-needled pine tree is in the back yard, with its own personal pedigree papers? Will they realize that it took 5 coats of primer to cover up the stupid ladybug ink stamps the guy here before me put on every windowsill? Will they know the happiness that Phil and I have known?

I suppose that when we do find our �more� perfect house, we will be just as excited to move into it as we were to move into here. Perhaps we will not look back with sadness but with fondness and thank this house for all it has given us. Meanwhile�..I have to paint my cave of bedroom beige next. This one might just kill me.

Until next week,
Meredith