Paint chips.

Well, we've been doing some house project planning...I finally finished the last interior door (*fanfare*) and Saturday we picked up the big bi-fold doors for our bedroom closet. So, I guess technically, I haven't finished the last interior door, but it was the last regular door, and let me enjoy my feeling of accomplishment, okay?

Once again we're turning our attention to our two bathroom re-dos, but I think this time we may actually get one of them done in the foreseeable future. I'd love to do both bathrooms in one huge swoop of productivity, but Todd is dubious that such a feat is possible. Both bathrooms need new paint on baseboards and walls, new flooring, new vanities, new sinktops, and new medicine cabinet doors.

Over on the right are the latest of the many, many paint chips I've picked up for our master bath. I'd like it to be some shade of light blue or a light teal, to coordinate with our bedroom, which has light coffee-colored walls and blue and teal accents.

Blue is a tricky color. I've never dithered around with a paint color as much as I have with this one. You don't want it too icy, or too bright. Nothing's worse than electric blue walls. We painted our bedroom light blue in the last house we owned, and although it was soothing at night, it was just this side of screechy in the daytime.

This bathroom has a south-facing window, so it gets lots of light, which also really affects the way a particular shade of blue looks at a particular time of day. I'm stumped so far. I know I don't want a really, really pale blue, but neither do I want it to be too dark. I like the idea of a light teal, but again, it can't be too dark. One of the things we like about the bathroom is how full of light it is, and we don't want to detract from that too much with a dark wall color.

These kinds of things are fun to fuss over--until it's go-time and you have to make a decision. Fortunately, I still have some fussing time left. We'll tackle the guest bath first and who knows when the master bath will get its due. I suspect it will need a new sub-floor, which will elevate it to a whole new level of home improvement headache.

Anyway, Todd likes the second chip from the top, which is called Lisbon Blue. I like it, too, but when I picture it on four whole walls, I think it might be a little screechy. Which one do you like?

I think they all look nice with my old framed postcards, which are the main decoration in the limited wall space of that bathroom. I collected a bunch of them years ago that each had a body of water in the picture, and framed them in super-cheap IKEA frames that I white-washed. They used to hang in a dark green bathroom in our old house in Columbus, and looked nice there, but I think they might really pop against the right shade of blue. I have eight of them all lined up against the right side of the window.

This is always a nice time of year to look around and think about new ways to feather your nest. It's too cold to be out and about too much, and so you can rummage through closets and find treasures and hang and rearrange things. I've been going through kitchen cupboards and drawers and tossing things and organizing. The only danger is when you make a bigger mess than you had before, and then you have to figure out how to get it all put away. That's when it's tempting to just forget the big projects and cuddle up with a blanket and book and keep the house tidy!