It’s been nearly fifteen years since we moved into our current house. A few years ago I had some high-traffic hallways repainted but the rest of the house still retains the builder’s original Manchester Tan from Benjamin Moore. I’m basically happy with the colour but after all these years I have a yearning for something a bit lighter and fresher. So, I visited my local Benjamin Moore store and came home with a handful of colour charts that I hoped would inspire me to take the big step.

Months later, those colour chips are still taped to the wall and I’m afraid to commit. It’s a big and dirty job to take down all the pictures, cover the furniture, put up with the sanding, taping, painting, and so on. My husband and I have reached that lovely age when we can honestly admit to being unable to do the work ourselves so we would have to hire a professional—which in all honesty would be my preference even if we were younger. Even that incentive has me dragging my feet.

Many years ago, I visited old family friends of my parents whom I’d known for decades. They were getting up in age and lived in a sixties bungalow in the north end of Toronto that they had purchased and moved into when it was brand new. All of the walls in the entire house were painted a mid-sage-green colour (except the bathroom which was painted orange) that was popular in the sixties. They were rather proud of the fact they had kept the same paint since moving in more than thirty years earlier. While I admire their faith in their colour choice, not to mention their tenacity, I do not want to be like them. But, I could be heading in that direction if I don’t pull my finger out and do something soon.

The immediate next step would be for me to narrow down the paint colours to three or four choices. Then, I should go to the store and see if they have larger sample panels of my chosen colours and bring them home to view in different lights on different walls. Sounds easy enough but it isn’t. That’s because taking that step would be the next step in the commitment process and I feel impotent. Somehow it just feels easier to “let it go” and do nothing.

I once had my home office in a former house painted a gentle and soothing colour called Muslin. That is one of the colours under consideration for my new project but when I hold the chip up next to Manchester Tan there is very little difference. Will that change be enough to satisfy my urge for something a bit different? Pristine reads as too pinky and Onyx White might be too . . . I don’t know . . . just not quite right. Too peachy?

Who knew that repainting my downstairs would be so filled with angst? As they say, it’s only paint, but it’s a huge job, not to mention the expense. What if I hate the colour after it’s all done? What if, after all that mess, fuss, and expense, it still looks the same as it did before? As someone who has always welcomed change and embraced the new and different, I feel as if I’m betraying myself. What is happening to me?

I have a friend who changes her wall colours regularly and always picks a winner. How I envy her confidence and commitment. When she gets tired of the look, she moves. Maybe that’s the solution. I’m normally a very decisive and unfretful person but this project has somehow managed to paralyse me. It was less stressful deciding to quit my job.

I think the solution to my inertia is to turn on HGTV. That always leaves me feeling unhappy with my decorating choices and guarantees feelings of discontent with my current look. An hour or two of watching another nervous couple turn their walls over to a professional should give me the impetus to git ‘er done. Unless it’s one of those episodes where the “After” version is worse than the “Before”, and I find myself questioning the merits of the entire project. That’s an entirely real possibility. Hence, my hedging.

In the spring, we’re usually ‘primed’ and ripe for change after a bleak and depressing Canadian winter. At the very least, it would be nice to have the painter clear away those cobwebs in the upper corners near the ceiling that I don’t have a hope in hell of reaching in this lifetime.

Muslin doesn’t sound particularly avant-garde as a colour choice, but it might just get that decorating monkey off my back. Or, I could wait until I move to The Home (you know the one I mean) where I’ll have no choice in the colour of my walls. If I hate the colour, I could just sleep all day and ignore it until they wheel me down to the diningroom for dinner.

Such a dilemma. Time’s running out, so it’s now or never. Do you have any suggestions for a nice warm, neutral colour? Are any of my BoomerBroadcast readers friends with Brian Gluckstein?