Wall Colors

Recently, my mother-in-law came for a visit. Both of my kids are away at college and don’t live at home, and yet I did not have a “guest room” to offer my guest.

 I went into my son’s old room and eyed the huge Canadian flag that covered almost one whole wall, and the elk antlers that were draped with Mardi Gras beads, and the Pulp Fiction poster that always made me cringe.

It sure would be nice to have a guest room to offer a guest.

I mentioned to my husband that I would like to paint that room, and by “I” I meant that I would like him to paint that room.

He looked half crest fallen and half angry. “So you want to erase any evidence that we ever had children?”

That made me pause, but just for a moment. No, my intention was certainly not to wipe away every trace of the twenty years that we spent raising children. The very notion was extremely upsetting to me too.

But, as always, I had to walk that line alone—the line between sentimentality and practicality. My husband acknowledged no such line. He traveled at a steady speed, always, on Sentimentality Road.

And so we lived in a four-bedroom house and had no guest room.

We expected our guests to lie in bed and stare up at the favorite items that our son had stuck on his bulletin board all through high school (concert tickets, the cap from his high school graduation, a poster of the 100 top films of all time).

Our guests were free to contemplate the walls that were painted a boyish teal and admire the stenciled musical notes all around the upper border of the room that my husband added because my son plays the piano and the violin.

It was all very nice—if you were a 15-year-old boy.

So I had to press my case, although on some level it pained me greatly. My daughter’s room had already been turned into my husband’s “art studio,” and now held a drafting table and art supplies. The walls were covered with his artwork (and that room would also need new paint).

Yes, I had to press my case, even though in all honesty, I almost didn’t want to paint the room either.

First, I texted my son, explaining that we did not want to upset him, but that we were thinking of painting his room and turning it into a guest room. He said he didn’t mind at all and to go ahead.

Okay. That was a little crushing.

Next, I sprinkled conversations at home with wall-color suggestions for the new guest room. Needless to say, those efforts were greeted with neither enthusiasm nor cooperation.

But the morning actually came when my husband agreed to visit a paint store with me to choose a color for that room. He walked into the paint store as though he were walking to the gallows. I tried to be patient, which is always a hopeless endeavor for me.

I explained that I, too, was very sad that we would be painting over the musical notes but that the time had come, and we would have to be steadfast and courageous.

He stood in front of the paint swatches, arms crossed, and scowled. It would not be easy to force him to veer off Sentimentality Road. I would literally have to shoot out a tire.

I suggested Melon Melody (a cheerful, cantaloupe color) and received a droopy and resigned shrug.

Success! We were in business.

Back home, I collected an empty box and we started taking things off the walls. Every little piece of paper had to come off the bulletin board, and then the bulletin board had to come down.

The elk antlers had to be unscrewed from the wall. Our son had posters on every wall and on the ceiling. He had pinned up covers from Beatles albums that we carefully set in the box.

Next, we pulled the furniture into the middle of the room and my husband started plastering the many holes on all the walls.

Then he started brushing primer over the musical notes.

We almost faltered at that point.

He glanced at me accusingly, and I pretended to pick up debris off the floor.

Before we knew it, white primer obscured the musical notes that always made us think of our musical son.

My husband grumbled, “Now there is no evidence that we ever had children.”

“Well,” I countered, “except for the two young adults who are in college and doing well. We will have to cling to that!”

I left him to paint the rest of the walls with primer because we were going from a darker color to a lighter color. Apparently, that is the accepted procedure.

In the morning, the primer was dry and he started applying Melon Melody to one wall. What a gorgeous color! It was bright and rich and absolutely transformed the room. Even he had to admit it was a brilliant choice.

By evening, the paint was dry and we had rearranged the furniture and put new prints on the walls. In the attic, we found the nightstand that matched the bed and placed it where it belonged.

The wall color was perfect and in two days, we had created an inviting and tastefully decorated guest room for any guest who might appear.

So, would someone walking around our house know that we spent 20 years diligently and purposefully raising our two children?

Unless they noticed the handful of photos on the mantle, maybe they wouldn’t.

Since I stubbornly refuse to budge off the line between sentimentality and practicality, there isn’t much more that would give us away. No one would immediately label us as the still slightly grieving parents of children who grew up and moved on.

When we finished the room, we lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes; more than a little drained.

“Remember when we first moved into this house and this room was empty, and we brought in the box that the refrigerator came in.”

I smiled. “And the kids had more fun playing in that box than they ever did with anything else.”

Our daughter was three years old and our son was 18 months.

We stared at the ceiling for another minute, letting in just enough sorrow to serve as evidence that we did successfully raise two children to adulthood.

And a new wall color would not undo all of that.