The Sunroom is nearing completion. Yes, a little over a month since my last post, the primer is on and were going to have to buy paint really soon. We ran into some trouble that is still unresolved while making those final fixes you have to do after clearing the tools up and before you prime (like catching the last few nail holes or vacuuming in places you only thought about at 3 AM). We have a thick layer of vinyl flooring over top of some kind of thin composite wood over top of interesting 1930's linoleum over top of the original floorboards to the porch. The vinyl flooring was about 1.5 inches short all the way round - noticible since we took off the vinyl siding so it must have been put down post vinyl siding (thats alot of vinyl, hu?). Near the back door it slid under the threashold and the door frame, so I wanted to pull it back so that eventually, when we can afford to put in the encaustic tile floor, we can rip up the old vinyl and more flooring without too much damage to the walls.
Now, all of you know that the job you decide to do in your running shoes on your way out the door is the job that gets you into the most hot water. As I yanked that crummy vinly out I saw it: damp, soggy, fuzzy wood. On both sides of the door where the old sidelights used to be (in the 40s and 50s) there were really crummy aluminum "colonial" panels fitted onto the outside, or better described as ill-fitted. the gap at the bottom, that was well concealed with about 1.5 inches of caulk, had given way at some point in the past year or 2 and water was seeping in under the vinyl floor - so we never knew about it. OK, so thats drying out and the lovely "colonial" panels are re-caulked, not fixed yet, but I got in a run that day.
I take color VERY seriously, painfully seriously. I have researched and filtered so that all the colors in the house fit 2 criteria: 1. they are historical, and 2. they are on sale. I am not fond of playing the what color will we paint this room game and I have never looked at a color and said "that's it!" For me, choosing color is harder than finding a husband. With a Morris-inspired old gold and peacock blue parlor leading into a rich monochromatic empire green dining room the color for the adjacent sunroom is limited. (note: none of these colors are up yet, the rooms still need to be restored and I havent fully decided on teh perfect variation of said colors) It can't be green, or gold for that matter (we love green, everything ends up with green somewhere in it, or red, thats even better sometimes, we love red). Purple? I really cant stand purple. Most pale colors will fade to mush in the bright sunlight of the room. Can't be white, or any shade of blue (since theres so much more to life than white and the only blue room in the house is the parlor - that makes it "special"). Whats that leave us with ? Orange or red. Like I said, I love red. Interestingly the rug in the dining room is a gorgeous vermillion and crimson red. Orange got bad reviews at the old house restoration (of course, it was mixed with robins-egg blue, crimson and deep mahogany) so I am really trying to avoid that.
According to the old decorators hints books from the last quarter of the 19th century (thats the target era) tertiary colors were highly recommended. They are more interesting and were all the rage with Aesthetes like Oscar Wilde and James Whistler. So if my parlor is peacock blue and pale terra cotta yellow, the other tertiary color in the triad (on the color wheel) is crimson red. If that color were lighter (to balance the heaviness of the green dining room) it would be a cool, fleshy pink. Adjust a bit for the brilliant sun in that sunroom and the winner should be a rich, saturated but light-ish flesh pink color.
Im taking bets on what the final color will be and how long it will take to decide. I have tan in 6 months ... any others ?
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