I painted my house

Allow me some self indulgence?!

My office window. I work from my walk-in closet.

After a disastrous and foreshortened euro holiday that involved an exterminator and a borrowed flat (in a Corbusier-designed building) that didn’t have A/C on “the hottest day in the history of France,” I am happy to say I’m back in America unrefreshed, wishing I’d never gone on vacation in the first place. It fell, like only adult experiences can, somewhere on the axis of humbling/harrowing/hilarious. I didn’t really blog, because I couldn’t think of shopping. I was thinking mostly of like… suicide by button? (It’s an ongoing fantasy of mine that you could just hit a button called THE END.) Just kidding.

A really important present.

The most relaxing thing that happened to me—after a horrible week and an 18-hr travel day—was crossing the threshold of my home and being welcomed by Sam McKinniss and Michael Londres (my friends and neighbors, you might have seen them in Vogue) who fashioned a gigantic box full of wine, food, and even a homemade pie! (And a frozen pizza which they threw in the freezer for the next day.) We had a wonderful meal and watched the sunset. It was the best night of the whole vacation mess. I had a feeling of total relaxation that was only somewhat undercut by the fact that I forgot to plug in my electric car and killed the battery, thus stranding us in the countryside on arrival. (This is my first car. My husband does not drive, and is from London. Is this a suitable explanation? It’s going to have to be.)

It wasn’t even supposed to be that much of a vacation. I’d wanted to get to our flat in France to check out the new paint job on the walls. We’d “decorated” it remotely. So remotely that I never even saw the paint swatched—we just selected colors from a blurry iPhone photo of paint chips, sent by our contractor. I don’t even know what brand of paint it was, just a brand that gave him some sort of kickback. People often talk about what they’re looking for in a partner and overlook the slippery nature of compatibility. That my husband also thought this was an okay way to paint the house says a lot about us as a couple. I guess what I mean to say is I don’t actually think either of us would have painted a house this way with anyone else. Compatibility is something you create. It’s like a behavioral pathway that opens up in your brain when you become a couple. This is why couples behave in ways that annoy everyone else. They’re emboldened by mutual decision making.

Can you decorate an entire house from two pictures, yes.

The result is probably a house that no one else would have painted this way, please enjoy that which cannot be photographed. (For the record, I think it rocks.)

Unwashed floors, millaux sheet.

This more accurately captures the shade of the living room.

My contractor claims he picked his own shade of green for the hallway. What a menace. I love it though.

I had this idea that a kitchen should be yellow.

One thing I really enjoy about the kitchen is this space for the trash bin.

This was a tricky one—we didn’t have a photo of our bathroom tiles, so Joe just picked a random blue. Does it work? I don’t know.

I asked my husband if he had any more photos of the house, and he just sent back this:

So that’s what I’m up to. Here’s my car being towed away.

Kaitlin

Please enjoy this video of GOD’S COUNTRY:

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