To sleep or to hypothetically decorate.......

It's late and I'm tired, but I haven't been able to sleep much the past two weeks. Partly because we are about to enter into the greatest debt of our lives, but mostly because I have a giant blank canvas waiting to be filled and the possibilities are endless. I've never known ahead of time what the house I was moving to was going to look like. This is a first. I've got the furniture mentally arranged in all the rooms, and now I'm pretend-sewing curtains and throw pillows. Why didn't I think to measure the windows during those 20 minutes we had at the house before we left town?

Decorating aside, this whole house-buying thing is turning out to be pretty stressful. It doesn't help that we're in South Carolina, the seller is in Seattle, our lender is in Connecticut, and the realtor and house are in New York. It's a logistical nightmare getting all the necessary paperwork to all the necessary places with all the necessary signatures. Then there's the home inspection, which was great except for one teeny tiny not-so-little problem.....a water leak from the master bath on the second floor to the basement that will require tearing out the kitchen wall. The seller agreed to our offer on the condition that we take the house as-is. So as soon as we close, out goes the kitchen wall. (We got an estimate, and it really isn't nearly as serious or expensive as it sounds.)

But that means after we patch up that wall it will need to be PAINTED!

So let's talk paint colors, because that's so much more fun than sleeping.

The house is already painted in great neutral colors and doesn't really need to be painted. But neutrals are safe, and I've never been one to shy away from a bright paint color. I've painted walls various shades of red, blue, green and yellow. For some reason I always get hung up on blue. I love it. I love the idea of it. But once I slap it up on my walls I just can't live with it.

All this to say, I think I'm ready to give blue another try. It's been 8 years since my ill-fated blue walls. Maybe we can be friends again.

I've decided to approach it differently this time: I'm not even going to look at the color swatches. All those varying shades make my head hurt and cloud my instincts. Instead I'm going to find my colors either in pictures or objects around me and take them to the store. The paint mixing computer can match any object I can carry in there.

I started looking around my house and I have a lot more blue than I realized. It's definitely snuck it's way into my life.

I've always been drawn to blue glass and I think if I went around the house and gathered it up I might be getting dangerously close to having a.....gasp....collection.

It might sound crazy (Micah thought so) but I really want to paint my kitchen walls aqua. I love aqua and red together. I know it's hard to imagine, just trust me. Fabulosity in a can:

The only thing holding me back is the floor. It's a checkerboard with kind of a muted turquoise-y color. I think I need something more neutral with it. So I'm thinking an aqua with more grey. I'm going for tranquility, not a punch in the face.
I've never done real grey before, so I think I might give it a try in the dining room. It's neutral, but different for me. I kind of like this one......
But this is a little more dramatic, and I do like drama on my walls.....

And you see the turquoise color in my shower curtain? I have big plans for that turquoise.

There is an amazing consignment shop down the road and it has all kinds of great, cheap, vintage furniture finds. I have vowed (in the wee hours of the night) that I will paint something that shade. Maybe a dresser. Maybe a bed. Maybe a small woodland creature. Not sure yet. But it's going to be cute, cute, cute when I'm done.