Life Stories and Beyond

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman

 

I’ve done it again. Waited so long to update the house that it’s now in style. It only took twenty or thirty years. That would be great if I wasn’t sick of looking at our green bedroom and beige and blue bathroom. Our house is filled with the ceramic tile that is the newest thing in-demand for 2020. That’s hard to believe.

 

Who knew that our blue tub, our green tub, and our purple tub would be so popular after fifty-two years of existence in our old farmhouse, my husband’s family home? I asked Siri if ceramic tile was really back in style and he, (my Siri is an Australian man’s voice), showed me samples of tiny tile squares like the formerly white ones on the floor in our blue bathroom. Oh my gosh. I should put out a warning that you cannot keep that grout clean, no matter what kind of sealants you put on it. DON’T DO IT!

I have no plans to remove the tubs although the matching toilets are all gone except our glorious blue one. I hear that people would pay big bucks for our non-water-saver powder blue potty. It flushes great. We still have the purple sink in our youngest daughter’s bathroom and the pair of green sinks in the bathroom between our sons’ rooms. The boys don’t realize how in-style they are.

For kicks and belly laughs years ago, the boys’ bathroom was painted orange above the green wall tile thanks to their older sister’s obsession with the color. It was her room at the time. Now I’m ready to say, “Out with the orange grove.” A blending light green paint will do. Like a peaceful meadow.

That funky green in our bedroom is back in style, and of course I want a pale barely-gray bedroom. I hear gray is on the way out—replaced by beige or greige as the with-it people call it. Oh my gosh. I’ve been there and done that whole earth tone beige, antique white, and tweedy looking fashion, complete with country curtains and wooden accessories. I refuse to go back there.

I had my fill of Harvest Gold, Avocado Green, and the Coppertone appliances from the sixties and seventies in our farm house. Around here, we don’t get rid of things until they are really, really dead. Or dangerous. We had not one but two brown stoves that canned decades of produce, but thanks to some remodeling four years ago, they were declared a fire hazard and had to go.

 

Today, the painters are coming, and I lied when asked in a text, “Have you picked paint colors yet?” I replied, “Yes.” But from five am this morning until seven, I searched my phone in the darkness of my newly in-style green room that I used to love but now detest. I looked at paint colors galore with fabulous names. Potentially Purple would work in our purple bathroom if I didn’t abhor the color. It’s my husband’s favorite color so I won’t mention this name to him. Dragon’s Blood is the new orange which would go well with my sons’ affinity for fantasy novels with fiery creatures. Practical Beige would be ok if I had not disavowed beige tones.

 

Our newly remodeled kitchen is painted in now out-of-style Agreeable Gray and Acceptable Gray with white trim. I hear white trim is now a no-no and darker trim and doors are in. Well, that figures. I just read that black kitchens are the newest rage. All the celebrities are getting them. Nope. Give me light.

I’m thinking of using a whiteish sky color called Sigh for our bathroom and Icicle for our bedroom. Maybe the chilly name will help cool off my hot flashes. The hall and foyer may be coated with Comet Dust, the paint color, not the actual thin film along the baseboards it will cover.

I’ve always been a step behind the latest “in” thing so why change now. I’m into doing life in my own way whether it’s hairstyle that’s long and shaggy because I don’t want to go to Great Clips during a pandemic, or paint that lightens my house. There’s enough gloomy darkness in the world now that I need to brighten the corner where we are. Dark may be the new bright but not here. Out with the new, in with the old, paint, that is.