Friday, Jun. 22, 2007
Dear Diary:

"So what do you think?" I asked the spousal unit, my brush poised for the next stroke.

He contemplated the log.

"Well," he allowed, "it doesn't make me want to puke."

Consider this a momentous victory.

Old colour scheme.We've lived in the world headquarters of MarnCo, the ruthless multinational behind The Big Adventure, for 30 years now and the colour scheme has always been what you see in this picture. The logs are stained a dark brown/black, the wood on the second storey a blue/gray and the trim Wedgewood blue.

It was fine, but a bit on the cool side of the colour spectrum. Last year I decided I wanted to warm up the colour palette of the house. The spousal unit's attitude to this was ambivalent. After all, we've been living with one set of colours for over half our lives now. It's not so much that he's against change per se, he just doesn't see the point of change for the sake of change.

Cunningly, I began my campaign last summer with the staining of the porch additions. "I'd like to stain them red," I told him. The house the spousal unit grew up in is red. This means red is automatically A Good Thing in his book, so he went along with the red porches. When it came time to paint the trim on the porches, we agreed that it would be good if it matched the logs behind them.

I chose a brown, but instead of the brown/black of our logs, I chose something warmer. Yes, I am that evil. He has a good eye for colour and immediately picked out the mismatch. I suggested that we live with it for a year. Then I suggested that we had too many colours in the house and maybe it would be a good idea to paint the trim on our main house the red of the porches.

Red is A Good Thing, so I got my red trim. It took me ages to paint that trim (and he had to do the stuff on the second storey above the roofs), but it was totally worth it.

A few weeks ago I approached him about the logs. They most definitely needed a coat of stain, which I volunteered to do in the downtime from the walkway project. The big question was which stain�would I have to use the brown/black or would he allow me the warmer colour? I had some of the warmer stain left over from last year's porch staining. We agreed to do the short south wall of the house with it and if he hated the colour, well, that wall would get two coats of stain.

It has a hint of maroon in it.Here you can see the colour contrast. It's pretty strong and I really wondered if he'd accept it. But when he said it didn't make him want to puke, hey, I knew I was home free. Except, of course, for the insane amount of work that goes into staining a log home.

It is a perfect trifecta of things I hate: vacuuming (the walls have to be vacuumed free of stuff that gets in the cracks), housework (the walls have to be washed with TSP and then rinsed) and of course, There Are Spiders. Lots and lots of spiders because apparently the exterior of a log home is a spider's dream condo location.

I detest spiders. I tried discretely vacuuming them all up but that made the spousal unit mental because he's one of those Buddhist people who believes in karma. He started going around as a one man spider Greenpeace, rescuing them all.

It was touching, in a demented sort of way.

Chchchanges.I have one wall left to go and then the logs will be stained. Already the house looks remarkably different to me, much more welcoming.

I would like to swap out the blue on the second storey for the colour we stained the floors of the porches. If you look at the bottom front of the porch on the left, you'll see a narrow strip of this colour. It's a kind of taupe/khaki/gray mix. I've broached the topic to the spousal unit and he's not sure, but open to considering it.

Rather than press my luck, I've decided to live with these colours for a year and see how he feels next spring about the big final change. Heck, once the walkway goes in, I may not want to swap out the blue because it will echo some of the bricks in the walkway.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 254.02 miles Ten percent there rubber duck. Ten percent there rubber duck.Ten percent there rubber duck.Ten percent there rubber duck.Half way there

Going Nowhere Collaboration

Goal for 2007: 500 miles


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