October 3, 2019 - 20 - "I know! Let's Sponge-paint EVERYTHING!"

    

     A lot of homeownership involves wondering what the heck the previous owners were thinking.

     In the case of the house we're renovating in Mexico, I'm referring to the owners before the previous owners.  The couple we bought it from lived in the house while building their current masterpiece.  Almost all of the design choices were made by the owners they bought it from.  But, then again, I can't really blame them either.

     It was the 80's.

     The 80's, as we all know in hindsight, was an era of epically bad choices.  There were strange rules that had to be followed when it came to decor:  Hollywood lighting had to surround vanity mirrors, mauve and/or floral explosions must ooze across bedspreads, geese-in-bonnets must preside over kitchens, and cutouts of wolves must howl on patios.



     I'm not casting stones.  I, too, lived in a glass house.  Literally, because both my coffee table and breakfast tables were sleek and modern glass no sane person should ever select.  (Highly, highly, impractical, unless you enjoy hovering over these surfaces at all times with a bottle of Windex.)  But my glass house was figurative, as well.  I adhered to many of the rules of the 80's myself.  The bases of said tables had to be high-gloss 'Chinese lacquered' black.  I had to have dusty rose and powder blue towels and accessories in my bathroom.  To top it all off, I admired it all while wearing linebacker shoulder pads and baseball-sized earrings,...beneath my shade-casting mall bangs.

        ***Full Disclosure:***

     I, Susan Stewart, did once Aid and Abet in the Crime Against Humanity known as Sponge Painting.  I did knowingly, and with intent help to sponge paint a room in a friend's home.

     As I recall we first painted her bedroom walls with a matte base of mauve.  (What other option was there, really?)  The top-coat, (hang onto your gag reflex, dear readers) was a high gloss burgundy-veering-towards-violet shade. 

     As if that's not bad enough, the unpleasant truth is that I even considered sponge painting rooms in my own house.  In trying to remember why I did not actually do this I conjured up images of the walls of my home during that time.  They were done in oh-so-tasteful light, (and solid) shades.

     I'm tempted to say I just had a finer design aesthetic and, therefore, had no interest in this cheesy trend.  But, alas, those mall bangs give me away.  The much more likely reason I did not sponge paint every room in my house is that the two-step painting process would have surely been too boring for me to get around to.

     Painting a wall once is fun.  Painting it twice is punishment.

  Anyway, I bring all of this up because the house we're renovating in Mexico was sponge-painted within inches of its life.  No room remained unscathed.  Some had two different (and opposing) colors of sponge painting.  (See laundry/powder/utility... room above.)  Not only is the pinky-brown at odds with the gold-y yellow, but both are sworn enemies to the beautiful onyx tiles.  (Barely noticeable because of the flashy wall colors/textures.)

     Painting over all this sponging-action feels a lot like when we banished the gang graffiti from the walls of our home in Texas.  Each wall feels like not only a visual victory, but a social triumph as well.

     In Texas we were reclaiming our Craftsman home from the ravages of neglect and gang tagging.  In Mexico we are bringing the house back in keeping with its Mexican and Spanish Colonial environment, (and out of the hands of those long-ago 80's Gringos-Gone-Wild.)

     We may, eventually, end up warming the wall colors up a bit, but for now the clean, light shades are a breath of fresh air.

     I'm embarrassed to say that I thought the flower painted headboard and the tiled fireplace would probably have to go.  When it was surrounded by the terracotta/brown/pink-ish sponge painting, it just all seemed incredibly busy and garish and heavy.

     A light color lets those elements take center-stage and shine.  After we could actually see the rooms, we could appreciate the beautiful tiles around the fireplace, and the sweet, hand-painted flowers on the headboard.  (And forgive the subtle background of sponge-paint on the headboard.)

     In the end, it's all so personal.  You might be wondering about the blue and cream shower curtain choice by that toilet.  Since you can't see the rest of the room you can't see that we are trying to match the blue pedestal sink.  (Another element that seems more live-withable then it did when surrounded by allll that sponge-painting.)

     So many elements go into any choice.  One person's dark depressing cave is another's comforting sanctuary.   Light walls are in our wheelhouse, but I'm sure someday the next owners will wonder what the heck we were thinking?