whiter shade of pale

We hired a professional cleaning service to do a thorough, top to bottom cleaning of the house before we move in next week.  They started today, and told us that they couldn’t finish it because the house is “really, really dirty.” So they’ll be finishing it up tomorrow.

We also decided to have the 3 bedrooms on the top floor painted before moving in, also – might as well, before all our stuff is in the way.  Plus, I don’t know how long I can tolerate looking at the weird color choices of the previous owners.

I LOVE gray and wanted to do everything in light gray, but decided that it wouldn’t match the one set of sheets that we have.  Yes, SHEETS.  You heard me say that I’m matching the color of paint in our bedroom to a set of sheets.  They’re from Anthropologie, ok?  We have two different sets, I’m crazy about both of them, and I want to be able to continue using them.  Originally I was against white, because I thought it would be too sharp, too out of place in that house – especially considering all the brownish earthtones throughout the rest of the house.  Then I decided, white goes with everything, and we’re just going to repaint the hallway, also – also in a shade of white.

And that cracks me up.  A “shade of white.”  I went to art school for a number of years, but I say WHITE is WHITE.  No, ok, I get it – there can be undertones of different colors, but really?  It’s not white then. Anyway.  I went to the Sherman Williams website and did a search on “white” and got 204 results.

With names like “Water Squirt” and “Spinach White.”  What the eff is “spinach white?” Needless to say, I will not be painting our bedrooms “spinach white.”

I used their little room painter application and I rather like the idea of white throughout the house.  White, to me, is sharp, clean, and simple.  And I LOVE white with wood floors.

Yet, I am still tasked with choosing which of the 204 whites I want. I just like the sound of “Marshmallow.” “Fresh Wind” looks nice.  Mr Nikki is partial to “Crushed Ice.”   Though, really, is there that much of a difference?

FelixCrushedIce
Crushed Ice
Discreet White
Discreet White
Marshmallow
Marshmallow
Olympus White
Olympus White
Wind Fresh
Wind Fresh

As for Felix’s room, I’ve been thinking about that for MONTHS.  I was kind of bummed about not being able to do the whole nursery thing, while pregnant – so the thing I’m most excited about now is doing his room.

Ever not the trendsetter, I thought about dinosaur wall decals for a moment.  Too cliche.  I really wanted colorful vintage robot or spaceship designs (like the motif on a pair of fabric blocks that I bought him off of Etsy).  No such luck.  But I did find these, which I love & bought immediately:

Giant, vinyl wall decals.  For a white wall.  And a brightly colored, color block area rug.

My parents are coming out again this weekend to help with the move & because of something I’ll yammer on about in another post (well, I’ll yammer about the solution).  It’s going to be hard to decide what to do – Mr Nikki & I, that is.  My birthday is the end of this month & Mr Nikki’s is two weeks after that, so mom said that for our birthdays, we should go get a hotel room for a night. (Cue cheesy, 70s porn music.)  I’ve pulled out about 10 cards from the Seattle City Walks of areas that would be fun for the two of us to check out.  We thought of hiking, or going to the movies, sleeping in… obviously, we can’t accomplish all that in only a 4 day weekend, PLUS managing movers coming to bring in all our stuff from storage.

We bought tickets to see Paula Poundstone on Saturday night (yes, I’ve been outed as a giant dork, I guess – she has us in stitches every time she’s on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me).  I suggested we go out after that, but seeing as she probably won’t be done until about 10pm or so… I’m guessing the only thing we’ll want to do is SLEEP.  I predict our weekend will go something like sleep, move, sleep, lunch/early dinner out, Paula Poundstone, sleep, done.  Maybe we’ll circle around downtown on foot or back to Ballard.

Originally, only my mom was going to come out, but Dad started to get jealous & maneuvered another couple days off.  Oh, how I laugh.  I lived in Prague for THREE YEARS before they finally came out to visit me, once, and in California for TWO years and they didn’t see me there at all. Even when I lived in Philadelphia, less than an hour away, they only came to see me there a handful of times.  (Though, to be fair, it’s because I usually drove up to see them every weekend.)  But for FELIX, oh, they’ll fly across the country twice in a matter of weeks.  *snort*

Well, I’m encouraging it, anyway, because we’re happy to have the chance to remember “us” before there was “us x 3”, even if all we do when we’re “free” is talk about Felix, anyway.  How could we not? He’s our favorite thing, ever.

2 thoughts on “whiter shade of pale

  1. Sarah

    The only white that looks different to me is the Olympus. Whichever you go with, I think white is a good move especially if you have concerns about the amount of natural light in the house. Of course, you could always do what the previous owner did in my apartment and put floor to ceiling mirrors in every room. We’ve been here nearly 2 years and it’s still unsettling.

    Ah yes, being second fiddle to your own kid is bittersweet. My parents relocated from NC back to MA because of Silas. You’re lucky to have your mom be available for you – it helps immensely!

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