August 22, 2006 in Home

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Red is definitely wrong. And so is any shade of purple. Blue wouldn’t work either. I mean, there is some blue going on right now, but it’s not a good blue. It’s a blue without character or commitment.

A friend suggested a sandy-brown desert color scheme, but that’s not going to work either.

Why? Color preference is subjective, as we all know, and I really don’t like anything even remotely beige. Not even if it’s called “Golden Desert.”

Yellow has occurred to me several times. Not phonebook yellow, but a very fragile yellow, like the fuzzy underbelly of a yellow canary.

One thing is certain: It’s difficult to pick a color for your house.

My first thought was gray. The color I’m thinking of is what I call “Spokane gray” because there are so many gray houses in Spokane. Add white trim, a black roof, a red door and sometimes black shutters, and ba-da-bing you have a typical Spokane color scheme.

And I even like it: It looks classy and understated in a good way.

“Aesthetically pleasing,” as my mom would say.

At some point I’ll need to replace the roof as well, and somehow I got my mind set on a dark green roof – even if it isn’t installed until five years from now. And that’s when the gray thing unraveled.

I mean, I’m sure there are gray houses with green roofs out there – beautiful ones, too – but as I was talking to one roof contractor he said: “Think in contrasts. You want a roof that’s a contrast to the color of the rest of the house.”

That would explain all the black roofs on the gray houses.

Then I thought of white. White seemed like a plan until I watched a home improvement show on TV the other night (appropriately on exterior painting) and one painter said beige and gray are such good colors because they don’t get dirty.

“If you are dealing with traffic pollution that’s perfect,” he said.

Well, I’m not – but I do deal with my share of good old Spokane dust.

What’s a woman to do?

Then a funny thing happened: Last week I was down in the basement tinkering around, and I noticed a piece of the original window trim left on one of the windows. And wouldn’t you know, it is very light green. The next day, I noticed a house about the same age as mine and just a block away with exactly the same light green trim.

That does it: White and green it is.

At least until the next time I sit down to watch a home improvement show on TV.

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