Express Yourself

There is something I was not anticipating when getting unmarried began. Beyond one-half of a king bed being piled high with clothes and shams instead of a human. Beyond having only female-scented items on the edge of the bathtub. Beyond having to get up to get your own glass of water EVERY TIME because no one can do it on their way to/from the bathroom. But also, and what I did not foresee being an issue, nobody (adult) in your house has to listen to you, has to observe your quirky  24 hours a day, as necessary.

 

People get tired of you. People need a break. People need to retract their attention for you and focus on themselves, their children, their parents, their friends, their successful marriages (which is my least favorite excuse.) But the person who lives with you as your partner/spouse is available and legally bound to listen to your verbal unravelings as necessary. Susan Sarandon said in a movie once that people get married because they want to have a witness to their lives, and to be a witness to someone else's. She should have gone on to say that one of the plusses to that is sharing a home with someone who will watch you lose your sh*t, and say "it's really not that big a deal" or "we'll figure it out" when you're done.

 

I'm one of those patients who has her therapist's personal cell phone number. And uses it. But first, I try to let my mind pursue something creative, to write or make something or paint a piece of furniture. Almost every corner of my house is a testament to my need to do things to keep my emotional fragility manageable, because doing things (not cleaning) calms me, and is a healthier salve than cream cheese icing.

 

I tried to just sit still. Really I did. I wrote and wrote. I worked my way through a three-page list of tweaks to the house to put it on the market and make it sellable and impressive. I attacked water spots in the ceiling with sponges of bleach and a towel covering my head. I broke a light fixture my handyman installed and put a new one in myself. (Just because I'd never done it before does not mean I couldn't.)

I put this up myself, on the THIRD RUNG of the ladder,
with my friend Michelle holding me steady at the bottom
and handing me tools and pieces.

I reached the end of that list, but the anticipation of waiting for someone to want my house is not something I can manage calmly. So my resentment at the upstairs bathroom that has always been a yellow box of a room sans personality beckoned. It was not age-neutral. I jumped up on a ladder with test pots of Benjamin Moore paints in my hand on a Wednesday night, after spending Monday and Tuesday evenings painting the trim and vanity.

Upstairs bathroom before, from listing.

Because only a wickedly unbalanced person would undertake a painting endeavor alone while their house was listed and semi-actively showing. No matter. I needed to do something. To feel like I was changing something. I have loathed this bathroom for three years. Something about the cream/yellow tub surround and the white tub. I had big dreams for tiling it ourselves and painting the vanity a gray or black or dark brown. That's excessive for a house you're selling. So one day there was a showing with four samples of paint above the tub surround. Those people came back, though, and when they saw it the next day, the cutting-in around the entire bathroom had been done. 

Upstairs bath with hideous tub surround and Benjamin Moore tests, left to right:
Revere Pewter, Tranquility, Camouflage, and Moonshine.

In painting the room, I wanted to do two things. First, I wanted to make the cream/yellow tub surround less cream/yellow. As the walls were currently a lighter shade of the same color, and it gets no natural light, the room was very drab. Second, the wall on the tub is sloped, and it was painted the white of the ceiling, which made the room feel shorter and smaller.

Tranquility was the spa-feel I was going for, but it was too dark. Lightening it 50% would've made it too blue. I have been wanting to use the gray green Camouflage, but it was REALLY green in here, and made the surround MORE yellow. Moonshine was too stark. Not one to hem and haw about these decisions and test more paint colors, I went with the safe Revere Pewter.

That is what the bathroom looked like when the house showed on Friday afternoon. This is what it looked like when it showed on Saturday morning. A note on the mirror said "Please pardon our progress. We are having this room painted a new neutral."

 

By "we" I meant "I." By "having this painted" I meant "my ass is shakily up and down on a ladder, terrified of falling and dropping this tray of paint."

 

Two coats later, I have this, which achieves the age-neutral look, downplays the tub surround, and my favorite part, heightens the room.

 

 

Also, here is a rare photo of the guest/my sister's room, which is now kept clean and show-ready, nothing short of a miracle and diligence on the part of Baby Sister.

 

 

The lessons learned here are this: Do it anyway, timing's not really that important. I can do all kinds of stuff by myself, both the "have to" ones and the "want to" ones. I am STILL good at everything I haven't tried yet.