Green with Envy
Painted Stair Risers and Bedroom Floors
Inspiration sometimes comes from a single item, but most often comes from a collection of things. I thought my inspiration for the stair risers and spare bedroom floors was our apple green, Kitchen-aid mixer, but realized as I compiled this, that I have been drawn and influenced by apple green for decades. I saw the spare bedrooms in this house for the first time and smiled. Who, from my generation, doesn't think of the Partridge Family bus? The 1970's left its mark on me. The carpet in my bedroom as a teen was apple green. I photograph the apple tree in my mother's yard nearly every year. It never gets old. My mother had painted the stair risers in the home I was born, nearly the same shade of green more than four decades ago. I had forgotten about it. It wasn't till I was accepting a compliment on painting my risers green, that she pointed this out to me. We digest and co-opt inspiration from everywhere, and frequently we don't even realize it. Thanks Mom, for the inspiration!
The inspiration for the paint color was drawn from my past, but the decision to paint came from sheer necessity. I planned to lay cork flooring in the two bedrooms and landing upstairs, then I was told we would have to level the existing floor and lay down a subfloor before installing the cork. The project was taking longer than it should, was over budget, and I knew going forward with the cork flooring was just going to prolong my agony. I wanted the contractors out of the house ASAP so we could move into the house. The easiest and fastest solution was to paint the floor. I had already chosen the riser color, so I simply picked the next lighter color from the Glidden fandex to paint the floors.
The result was absolute genius! The Zesty Lime color is what makes the upstairs spaces sing. It gives the confining, half story space expanse. The eye is drawn to the exaggerated breadth of the bright floor and not to the odd angled walls and low ceiling.
