Any tighter, and I'd have married it.

OK, after a day rest, Cookie is back to painting, again.  And I have to tell you that I have just about worn out what my husband calls my "Happy Magic Fun Hand" from holding paint brushes and rollers.

Last week we met with a friend who's a realtor for dinner and I asked "If we were going start a redo of the paint in the rooms of Cookie Manor, what colors should we choose.  Our friend, who is successful, and who knows our house very well said "Same colors in all the rooms, but redo the guest room in a neutral, and paint the upstairs bathroom a light to medium light blue/aqua."

The guest room is now, Sherwin William's Rouge Red, a deep red on the blue side.  It is anything but neutral. After 18 years, it can go, because 2012 is the year of big changes.

But the bathroom blue or aqua? This scared me.  I am not a lover of light blue, and I am even less fond of aqua. And the bathroom has white beadboard 6 feet up the walls, so it wouldn't be too much of those vile colors, I reasoned.  And 2012 is the year of making big changes to my life, and that means getting out of my comfort zone.

And painting this bathroom, which is 8 feet wide by 8 long (with a vanity, toilet and large 95 year old tub) is hard as hell because you can't get a step ladder into it, and you can't use a painting pole because the pole keeps hitting things.

The first time I saw the bathroom all those years ago the Realtor said "It's small and it's tight."

"Any tighter and I'd married it," I said.

Painting the bathroom means having to contort you body around things, balancing like a circus acrobat and standing on things that weren't to be stood upon. Sorta like Twister, but instead of colored dots, you're using the toilet lid, the window sill, the edge of the tub and step stool. Then there is the stretching, the lunging and the holding of ones breath. It may be the smallest room in the house, but its Hell to paint once, and at its best, its like a Yoga class with a loaded sash brush in one hand.

Painting that room twice in three days is torture, but the added bonus of knowing if you slip that certain death (or brain damage from the fumes) awaits makes it all the more fun.

First I went to Home Depot, because Consumer Reports rates their paints highly and selected a Martha Stewart shade of aqua, on the blue side.  Up it went, and it looked lovely while wet, but when it dried, I was appalled.  It looked so, well, cheap - made me think we were living in a ghetto rental.

Still, I thought it was my bias, so I had our friend the Realtor (who is a member of the 10 Million Dollar Club) over and she saw it and was pleased as punch with it.  "It's so beachy and spa-like," she said as she scrunched up her face and shoulders thinking it the cute thing to do.

But I'm not a beachy person.  Neither is the Husband - he's more the sea going type.

Still, I thought it best to await his opinion, because if he could like with it, so could I.  Upon seeing it, he said "I hate it."  Matter settled.  I would risk life and limb and repaint.

Resigned to repainting, this time I went blue - a light blue with some gray in it from Lowe's and the outcome is better and more livable.  Spa-like, not beachy. 

I still hate the light blue. 

I can live with it in the short term, and that is all we have to do.  Because I'll be damned if I have to paint it a third time.