Wild Hairs

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Have you ever just gotten a wild hair and decided to do something out of the norm? Something that normally you would have never done? I recently took a walk on the wild side. Don’t worry, I didn’t cheat on my hubby with that cute grocery clerk, didn’t dye my hair rainbow colors, or get anything else pierced. I’m still tattoo-less. Nor did I decide to change careers and become a nun or world traveler, even though I saw the movie Eat, Pray Love. Nope, my wild hair involves home décor.

I know, you were hoping for something a lot wilder and crazier, but actually it’s a funny story. It started when my son’s dog ate my furniture. (That’s not the funny part, it’s actually really sad.) While waiting for the new furniture, due to arrive right before Christmas, I started thinking about décor and looking at my walls. Of all my walls, the one that really disturbed me was the entry room wall. I had some gawd-awful ugly wallpaper that had to go. I don’t have a clue why I liked it five years ago. It must have been a brain fart or another very bad wild hair. However, I decided to pull the wallpaper and get hubby to paint the entryway. Now, as much as I hate admitting it, I’m a white- wall person. Boring, right? So I decided to go with some color in the entryway. I envisioned a light taupe. I know, you’re thinking taupe is nothing more than beige and beige is just a shade away from white. And to be honest, that’s what I wanted, a shade away from white.

Do you know how hard it is to find a shade away from white? We make a trek to the paint store and we bought two little sample paint cans to try them out. Neither worked. One was too yellow, the other had hues of puke green. So back to the paint store to buy some more little bitty cans of paint. And guess what. One was orange and the other made my front door look pink. Hubby put his foot down. He’d already spent more on paint samples that the gallon of paint was going to cost. So I went back to the store, and picked out a gallon of taupe paint without testing it.

You should see my brown entryway. LOL. But you know what, once hubby finished it, I even liked it. And it hit me, if I could like brown . . . could I go with something even wilder? What about a wild and crazy burgundy wall? Add a little color to my family room.

Do you know that expression on our husband’s faces when you tell them something you want to do and they really, really hate the idea but you’ve trained them well enough that they say the right thing instead of blurting out what they really think. Never mind that what they think is clearly read in the horror on their face. Well, the look I got from hubby about my burgundy wall was the same look I got from him when I suggested he get a vasectomy. But I gotta give him credit, he picks his battles wisely. Not only did he get the vasectomy but he also went with me to the paint store to pick out a burgundy paint.


We arrive and some sweet older lady helps me pick the color. Hubby tells her which paint, and she informs him that he needs to upgrade to the better paint. Hubby doesn’t like that idea too much—only one woman gets to tell him what to do—but he agrees. Then the woman, obviously not knowing she’s pushed the limit, informs him he will need a primer. Hubby informs her that it’s only one wall, and he’s buying a whole gallon and he can just paint the wall with several coats. She shakes her head and tells him he will still need the primer. Hubby shakes his head and tells her it’s paneling and he thinks it will be fine. She stands her ground and says that with paneling, he really needs a primer. Hubby stands his ground, too, and says he’ll just take the paint. I stay out the argument. I can see from hubby’s expression, this is one argument he intends to win, but this sweet little woman isn’t going down easy. Wearing a frown, she rings us up, then she looks at me and says… “He needs the primer. You’ll see I’m right, but I know he’s not going to listen because I got one at home just like him!” I know immediately that her opposition is due to her husband-related issues.

So, the next day I’m in my office when I smell the paint, and I walk into the kitchen. “Don’t come in here,“ he says, waving me away from entering the room.

I stop. “You needed the primer, right?”

“No, it’s just it needs about sixteen coats of paint. But it will be fine. On the sixteenth coat. Really, it will be fine.”

My hubby can’t lie worth a damn. I walk into the room and . . . Oh crappers, it hurts my eyes. I mean. . . the color is barn red. Where’s my burgundy wall? In my mind and in my vision that wall looked so different.

He looks at me and asks. “What do you want me to do? I can stop now, or keep going. It might get better.”

I felt we’d gone too far to turn back. I shrug. “Go ahead and paint it, I’ll convince myself it’s for Christmas and after Santa leaves for the South Pole you can paint it another color and . . . use primer this time.”

He flinched at the mention of primer and the primer lady. Of course, he swears the change in color is not due to the lack of primer. But don’t you just know that there’s a lady in a paint store thinking…I told him so. Nevertheless, he keeps painting, and painting. A few days later, he calls me in there. “I know you are going to think I’m lying, but I think I like it.”

He’s right. I thought he was lying. But he wasn’t. Not that I was on board with his “I like it” frame of mind. I mean, every time I walked into the room and saw that barn red wall, I flinched. Seriously flinched. But he kept painting. And two days and about three coats later, I walked in and looked at the wall and guess what…I didn’t flinch. Okay, maybe just a little bit, but nothing like I had in the beginning. I don’t know if it’s because the shock is over with or if maybe, just perhaps, I’ve begun to like it.

And whenever I have to warm up to something, I worry. I mean, it was like the perm I got in the eighties. I hated it at first, but after seeing it in the mirror about three dozen times and crying my eyes out, I grew to accept it. Now when I see pictures of me with that perm, I think the only reason I kept it was because the fumes of the perm and tight curls had affected rational thought. Even worse, I wonder if it’s the paint fumes making me less disgusted with the barn red, without primer, color.





But I kept the perm, and I’m thinking I might even keep the red wall. At least until after Christmas. Oh, and I’m definitely keeping my hubby. Any man who will paint a wall with at least seven coats, knowing I might just have him repaint it, well, that’s love. Or maybe he’s just out to prove a certain paint lady wrong. Either way, I love the guy.

So what about you guys? Have you ever gotten a wild hair and made some rash change and regretted it, or maybe you loved it. Do wild-hair changes always shock us? Do we need to be shocked sometimes to get ourselves out of our white-wall status quo? Come on, share a little. Today, I will be giving away a copy of my YA, Born at Midnight. So post a comment. One lucky winner will win!

Crime Scene Christie