Orrrr…The living room purple! It’s a long-standing tradition in my family to always have one room that is “Amanda’s Room”, i.e. the purple room. My mom always has one, my dad has one, and even my sister has one in L.A. So here I am in Berlin, thousands of miles from home, and I decided to paint the bedroom…(drum roll please!) BLUE! Now it should be said that blue is another of my favorite colors, not just any blue – but a nice turquoisey blue. So it’s not completely out of whack for me to have this blue bedroom, but it has felt a little strange not having the color purple around me always.
I’ve noticed that I have been compensating for this lack of purple in the home by buying more purple things. I’m starting to get worried myself, since I now have a purple purse, wallet, scarf, dresses, shirts, etc. I never used to own so much purple, even though it’s always been my favorite color. It’s like I can’t stop myself. Whenever I see something purple, I reach for it and purchase. I had to stop myself today from buying these beautiful purple Christmas ornaments, mainly because I don’t even have a tree! But if I did, I’m sure you could imagine what it would look like…
This would have been next!
So after living in my apartment for about 6 months now. Sleeping in a cool blue room every night, and walking into a startlingly white living room every morning and at the end of every day, (even the couch is white!) I decided that my apartment was simply not me enough. There wasn’t enough color, and certainly not enough things on the walls. (Anyone who has known me since high school can remember well the days when every single square cm of my walls in my purple bedroom were covered in things…photos, magazine cut outs, designer labels I liked, shoe boxes, artwork from friends or my sister…)
That’s when I made the decision to get crackin’ and to paint the largest wall in the living room (3m x 6m so almost 10 ft x 20 ft) a nice deep purple. For the record, this is not “Amanda” purple, which is usually more of a lavender. I wanted deep, rich, royal purple. So I went to the Home Depot equivalent in Berlin, OBI Markt, and picked my poison – Crocus 8, and bought enough to cover 20 m2. Then I taped off the entire wall yesterday – knowing what a big pain in the ass it would be to tape and paint all in the same day, from having the experience with my boyfriend when we painted the bedroom blue in June and both wanted to cry from how frustrating and physically exhausting a process it was. (For the record, he thinks I’m crazy for taking on another painting walls project!)
Getting there...!
But there I sat, letting the paint dry (is it weird if I admit I was watching it dry all day to see the differences in shades that come out? Okay, then I won’t admit it…) and though I realized it’s not quite the deep dark royal purple I had intended, and it is much more “Amanda” than I originally anticipated, I have to say that I completely and totally love it and definitely feel more at home here!
As Purple as Purple Gets
What makes your living space your “home”?
Anywhere Home 