by Patti
I'm getting ready to hang a new chandelier and maybe even spray paint a blackboard onto my kid's bedroom wall, and I'm going to do it because my husband is out of the country.
I have this thing: whenever M goes out of town, I simply have to redecorate in some way. Sometimes it is something as simple as buying an old, $4 desk from Salvation Army, slapping some stain on it, and decking out my dining room with the "new wine glass hutch that looks expensive":
It's not that I can't do these things while M is around, but when he is, I have to deal with the Questions. "Why are you doing that?" "Are you sure you're doing that right?" "Why don't you pick this color instead?" "Are you going to leave that there?" When M is around, he is privy to my process - which I will readily admit ain't always pretty - so I get where those questions and doubts come from. But I know my process; I know that although it might appear during that process that a creative bomb exploded its overzealous guts all over whichever room was victim to my whims...
Poor M - the second he booked his ticket, he saw that gleam in my eye. He gave me The Look, the one that begs me not to knock down any walls. But I reassured him I only planned to change out a few light fixtures (with the help of my roof thatchin' Greek), stain some wood to yank its grainy self out of the 80's and into the 2012's, and try to re-purpose an old table into a TV console. That's all! And I might paint a wall turquoise. (Well, he doesn't know about the turquoise wall - yet. But, you know, process!)
I remember years ago when M was out of town, I suddenly hated, but hated, our pewter wrought iron bed. There it stood, rather un-majestically, in the middle our bedroom sticking out its tongue at me. So I immediately ran out and bought some black spray paint, came home and disassembled the bed, laid out some drop cloths, and went insane with "Jet Black". Never mind we lived in a condo on the 19th floor and the windows in our bedroom did not open and our carpet was cream colored, I sprayed the shit out of that wrought iron bed right then and there in our bedroom and, completely high on fumes, transformed that pewter nothingness into a glorious, glossy masterpiece of black. And while I was at it, I kind of spray painted our cream carpet black, too. Once I realized what I had done, I died a few thousand deaths, hearing M's scolding, "Oh, Lucy!" voice in my head, and desperately tried to figure out a way to cover it up. Laundry basket on top? Too obvious. A plant? I kill plants; we all knew that. A fake plant? Too retired-in-Florida. OH GOD WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO? So I called M and told him how amazing and incredible our "new" bed looked, and then I casually slipped in the tiny little speck of black I'd gotten on the carpet, ha ha ha, oops, isn't that hilarious? He did not think it was hilarious. He "Oh, Lucy'd" me to death, and I nodded along, knowing he'd get over it once he saw how incredible our bed looked.
And he did get over it, as he has gotten over many other of my redecorating mishaps, because he has no choice but to admit that I kind of kick ass at coming up with ways to reinvent the old into new, over and over again.
I am shaking a can of spray paint as I type this, the familiar sound of "beads in a can" like music to me. You see, M is already gone, and I only have two weeks to tackle this round of "husband's away" redecorating. I'm going to miss that man, but I have my kid and the promise of a turquoise wall to keep me company.
Process!
