As I type this week’s post, my house is being painted.  Actually, it’s being re-painted.

We have had the same ole’ beige paint in our house for a while, and it was time for a refresh.  My hubby Jay is pretty creative, so when it came to picking colors, I let him lead the charge.  We both agreed we wanted to try something new and contemporary.

After looking at and testing several samples, we finally decided to be risky and try a deep, mustardy yellow.  I left the painters in the house at 8am, and when I walked back in later that afternoon, it looked like a banana had exploded all over our house.  Not only was it the wrong shade, it was just plain wrong.

At dinner that night, we sat at the kitchen table, staring at our yellow walls.  We had just spent our hard earned money to hire painters to spread over five gallons of yellow love all over our downstairs, and I was determined to make it work.  We started brainstorming ways we could change the lighting, get creative with decorations, and shift the overall layout of the house to minimize the yellow.

As if that wasn’t enough, we “Googled” yellow rooms and found that while they make great bedrooms and bathrooms, they don’t do well as main rooms of the house.  Turns out the color yellow can stimulate feelings of frustration and anger.  Interestingly, babies that have yellow rooms have been found to cry more than babies that don’t.  Given our situation with a highly oppositional child, it gave us both a chuckle that we picked the one color that would not only fail to create a calming and peaceful environment, but that would exacerbate our already chaotic one!

There I sat, lamenting over our poor choice, not wanting to spend more money and time to fix it, when Jay reminded me of a blog post I wrote last year, Life Is Like a Google Map.  It really bugs me when he uses my own stuff against me!

I realized that the cost of repainting was far less than spending the next several years frustrated by our banana of a house.  It may not be your house, but if something in your life has turned into a banana, it’s not too late to turn it around.

Ironically, after literally sampling dozens of colors, we ended up with a nicer version of beige than we had and we appreciate it a lot more.  Sometimes all it takes is a change in perspective to appreciate what you have.

At least now we can say we’ve lived in a banana.

 

23 Comments

  1. I would say that banannas only live yellow for a little while too, they are green, then turn yellow and if you don’t peel them to reveal the creamy white inside soon enough, you eventually get various shades of brown. It is funny how the world can make us think we need to feel more modern and break away from norms. Those DIY shows should teach us to only use pops of color in accessories, not on the walls. Sorry, you guys spent so much on the painting. Have a great week and thank you for the insight and motivation this morning.
    Barbara

  2. Ha! Yellow can be sooooo tricky to work with, but so can’t beige. Mom and I went through dozens of samples of each before picking our colors for the living room (khaki beige) and library (very pale yellow). That said, your story was the perfect prelude to your lesson — change what you don’t love. I’ll be sure to apply it to something today.
    A fashion-forward friend of mine once gave me the advice, “when choosing clothes, it doesn’t matter if the item is expensive or a $3 bargain, if you don’t absolutely love it, don’t buy it.” Don’t ever buy clothes under the pretense, “I think I can probably make it work.” Ever. Only buy things you are completely in love with. Same in life, right? Make sure you’re in love with something, else walk away or change it. Thanks for the great reminder, Anne!

    • I love your friend’s advice. I always think I’m getting such a bargain when I buy something cheap, only to realize I give it away a year later because I’ve never worn it! So sorry your present came unwrapped! It was supposed to be “beautifully” wrapped with a card! Bummer.

  3. This is great, I feel your pain. We decided to liven up our dining room and chose the colors we thought would look great. We finished product is a lower half that is fire engine red and the top part is cream. Make for a great conversation starter.

  4. When I was a kid, my parents repainted my and my sister’s bedrooms to yellow for mine and pink for hers. I had wanted light blue for my walls, but I guess my parents maybe thought it would be too weird to have a blue room and a pink one next door to each other, like saying I was a boy, and my sister a girl.

    Anyway, I was disappointed–until the first morning I awoke in my newly-painted bedroom–and then I fell in love. My entire room was like sunlight. Having lemony-yellow walls made my room sunny, happy, beautiful, and perfect. I never wanted light blue again.

    Interestingly, I’ve found that yellow attracts my visual attention. Highlighting in other colors doesn’t really impress me, but I will always pay attention to yellow highlighting. It makes me wonder if I have some features of cortical visual impairment, because I’ve heard that such children are drawn to particular colors, individual to each child.

    I live in a pink bedroom now, and it’s just icky-girly, but I’ve gotten used to it.

  5. This article applies to my situation right now. Years ago my husband became very depressed after the passing of his father and moved into the spare bedroom. My sister and I put out brains together (her being a nurse) as to how we were going to get my hubby back where he belonged, “our” bedroom. One of the colors my husband hates most in this world is the color of mustard “yellow”. One weekend when he was gone fishing, we painted the spare bedroom “yellow”. He moved back that same day! 🙂

    Interesting that your remarks could be true with some people when you say that the color yellow can stimulate feelings of frustration and anger. My 17 year old grandson lives with us and his bedroom is the yellow spare bedroom. He started living with us because he had behavior problems with his mom and could not live in peace with his dad. He is doing fine now, but every once in a while he becomes so frustrated and angry that we spend hours talking him out of his frustration. I am painting his room the color of his choice this weekend!!!! He hates the color yellow!Thanks for your article, it helped me today.

    • I love your creative way of getting your husband to “move” back in 🙂 Let me know what color your grandson chooses! That’s awesome!

  6. Jay must have had a “flashback” to the orange family room that he grew up with in Toms River when picking out the yellow!!!!!!!! When life throws you lemons make lemonade, or when life throws you banana’s make a banana split :).

  7. When we lived in South Carolina, I had a very artistic friend that convinced me to repaint all my walls in yellow!! I almost died but she told me to just be patient and she chose a mustart yellow with lots of brown undertones. When we first painted the largest wall in the living room I cried and thought it was going to be horrible. So much yellow!! I could smell the turkey sandwiche. But then we added army green accents in our curtains, sofa, carpet and walkway walls and it was beautiful! It was the most beautiful colored wall I have ever lived in and when we moved the new owners asked us not to change a thing!

    Now in our new house we have pale yellow walls in our bedroom for that sunny glow in the morning.

    So much is perspective and hues!! If you have the wrong hue it is all wrong. Same can be said about your perspective.

    Thanks for a great post and reminder of a great memory!

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