White: The Presence of All Colors

I am a plotter and a planner.

This morning, as I have for many mornings, I woke up thinking about paint colors.

Specifically, White. In general, I avoid white. I am a restaurant girl, and wearing white is essentially wearing a fitted tablecloth and asking the world not to spill food on you. I'm also now a Mom, which means we buy oxyclean in bulk. In the paint realm, I have always rented and most landlords prefer the walls to stay white, thank you very much, although I've always managed to push that into the warmer world of Antique White, conveniently available in 5 gallon buckets at the wholesale hardware stores landlords like to frequent. That way, I don't have to live feeling like my kitchen may be converted into a surgical theater at a moment's notice. 

Currently, we live in a lovely 1926 up / down duplex owned by fellow restaurant people who had no such white wall stipulations. In fact, a previous tenant was one Mr. Andrew the Impaler of the Circus Apocalypse, a rowdy bunch of creative miscreants who essentially introduced Busking to Pittsburgh. Although we saw evidence of the raucous colors befitting a circus performer that Andrew had painted the place (behind the stove, the wall was painted bright yellow and the trim bright red--think squeezie mustard and ketchup bottles at a hot dog stand) just about every room had since been repainted White. Only one Andrew-era room survived. One of the bedrooms is a shockingly bright chartreuse green with a darker green trim. Compared to the whiteness that was the rest of the place, it was genuinely disturbing--but then, strangely, it grew on us, as it must have grown on all the tenants between Andrew and us. Eventually, this Granny Smith apple green room would become our baby to be's nursery.

A long while ago at Gypsy, an old friend, astrologist, numerologist, and clairvoyant Andoni Lizardy, stopped by. The day we met, when he literally walked in off the street and into the cafe, Andoni had filled a full sheet of paper with indecipherable scratches of calculations based on my birthdate and proceeded to tell me things about myself so accurate, I could only shift my eyes away and unconvincingly tell him he was way, way off before shrinking away. (I tacked those scratches to the Gypsy office bulletin board where they stayed for years until I packed them away in a box labelled "Memorabilia" just a couple of months ago.) Anyway, on this most recent visit, just after we'd moved into our new duplex, Andoni looked at my birth chart. He excitedly announced, "you've shifted!"  He went on to tell me that the shift was in my Fourth House, representing home and emotions. He told me that I had Scorpio in that house and that my scorpion had shifted to its next incarnation, Eagle. (It seems that Scorpio actually changes forms as it ascends to its third and final incarnation of Dove.) The simplest way I'd experience this in my life, he said, was in my home environment. He told me that Scorpions like small, dark spaces they can back in to in an effort to protect and defend themselves, whereas Eagles liked light and air and vantage. The apartment I'd left, where I'd lived for 14 years, was a small first floor apartment with low ceilings. Each room narrowed as you traveled back into it. I had it decorated in dark, rich colors, burgundies and royal blues. The apartment we'd just moved in to is a second floor on a hilltop, all windows and cross breezes and expansive views. We painted the walls airy turquoise, sky blue, seafoam green and dusky purple. 


But, I digress.


So our next address is the house on my family's farm, which is where white comes in.


I have really come to appreciate the light and air of our current abode, but the house on the farm offers some challenges to this. The upstairs of the house has a decent amount of light and a bit of airiness. I'm choosing between yellows, I think, for the livingroom. In our bedroom, I may repeat the dusky purple, and I'm deciding between pinks, purples, and maybe even green again for Violetta's room. Jim will have a study, and I'm thinking about some guy-friendly blue-greys for him. The downstairs is the trouble.


Most of the house is below grade, and the downstairs, where most of the living is done, is set well into the hillside. The ceilings are low and the feeling is decidedly basement-y; dark, chilly, and damp. The plate glass window that makes up most of the front entrance helps. The fireplace helps. The non-negotiable dark brown carpeting, dark kitchen cabinets, and beige tile, do not. I was thinking pale blues, even slates, would evoke the simple, airy farmhouse look I'm dreaming up, but I am afraid of applying a cool palette to a cold space.

So, again, White. 


I'm thinking white is the answer, for the downstairs anyway. But not a blue-white; too cold. Pinkish? Yellowish? Brown? Is it better to try to warm up a cold space, or just take it neutral?

How long will this keep me up tonight?

And what happens when I reach Dove?