Two weekends ago we finally painted Polina’s room. It was a long time in the making, and when it was done, I almost cried, and not in a good way.
Why is it that what I thought I worked hard for doesn’t come out?
We began working on Polina’s room last year by replacing the old drywall and insulation. Then came a little OCD on my part. Installing drywall involves taping, mudding, and sanding the seams to blend in with the wall. In our case, it went on for weeks. The reason is because I wanted the walls to be as flat as possible, and that meant sanding and mudding every dimple anywhere flat to perfection. Peter became a master at mudding. I almost went insane sanding. If there was even one knick from sanding, I circled it with a pencil and it was back to mudding… and sanding.
We got to a point last fall where enough was enough. We felt it was good enough to paint. We put primer on the walls but before we embarked on a paint color, we discovered a much more serious problem in our house- water flooding our crawl space. 1500 square feet of it about 6-8 inches in depth. It took three days for a 1/3 hp pump running about ten hours a day to get rid of it all. Then came the work of digging and installing a french drain around the perimeter inside our crawl space. It was messy, dirty work on our knees, with more pumping after rainfalls, of which there were several.
We finished installing the french drain four weeks ago and set our sights back to Polina’s room. As of today, none of the bedrooms in our house are finished. Polina has been sleeping in our bedroom while we set up our bed in the living room. One day, I showed her the room that will be hers. She was excited. “This is going to be my room?” she asked thereafter when she passed it. Her question soon turned into a statement. “This is going to be my room.” We could tell she wanted her own room. The pressure was on to get this project finished.
We began looking at colors. This was a challenge given the room’s north facing window. The room had to look bright, but I didn’t want it Disney bright. Peter just wanted to paint it, practically any color, just to get it finished. Polina oscillated between purple and orange and purple and pink. We couldn’t find a purple that didn’t make the room darker, so we settled on a light pink that we mixed ourselves.
I was slightly sad to see the virgin walls we worked so hard to perfect be painted over. I know progress marches forward, but sometimes I just want to stop time until I’m ready, which can be a really long time.
My little girl was getting a pink room, something I never had or would have even considered for myself. Following my mother’s footsteps, I thought being gender neutral meant strength. Pink was a sign of weakness. I probably put off more than one man by hiding my femininity. My little girl, on the other hand, has no issues wearing a dress every single day so she can look like Cinderella. I teared up the first time she pointed to Cinderella and said, “She has to find her prince.” Now, I realize, there is nothing wrong with that. I’m at a place where I want to support her optimism, but also foster strength and independence.
We learned that a little color goes a long way. Even though we only painted three out of four walls pink (the other wall is off white), what we thought was light pink looked a little overwhelming after Peter was done painting.
After all the work we put into it I thought I was going to cry. Story of my life. I tried, and things turn to crap. Then Peter showed me the color illuminated by different lamps and sure enough, it was the color we agreed to. I got an idea to buy an ivory rug to lighten up the room, and adding furniture will make it even more multi-dimensional.
I’m not an interior designer by any means, and even though I looked at Pinterest for inspiration, it still isn’t what I consider perfect… yet. But I’m willing to work with it and make it better. Polina is going to make it her own room anyway.
I just hope she doesn’t change it to black.
