Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I am notoriously bad at selecting paint colors.  Most recently, I have successfully painted two rooms (kitchen and office) with a color I stole from Chicagomama’s house.  It is a neutral, modern cement color.

I thought I would also use that color to paint M’s room (which was previously a dark lavendar) and the stairs and upstairs hallway (previously a wine/red color).  I liked both colors, but I thought they were too strong to sell the house. 

I primered both rooms with the cement color and I HATE it.  I hate it in both the hall/stairs and in M’s room.   I am especially sad about the loss of the red on the stairs because it matched the red accents in the livingroom (rug & lampshades).  The new color is also too close to the color of the white trim and built-in dresser upstairs.  And it appears to make the stairs look extremely steep (which they are)

Now I don’t know what to do.  I am very close to painting the stairs BACK to red.  I need some internet help, please.  Is red an awful color?  Would you be horribly offended by red stairs?  You can see them as soon as you walk in the door.

Here is a tiny glimpse of the color

And M’s room, I guess I should either paint it a mossy green or a light pink to coordinate with the new bedrooms stuff she has.  She has a dark pink beadspread and a quilted pillowcase with light pink, dark pink and a touch of green.  The wall color below are what I am considering. Either that or an icey pink.  Would pink be too girl-specific for staging a house to sell?  Would light pink walls with a dark pink comforter be too much pink? 

 God, I am just not a visual person at all.  I totally need to just copy someone else’s ideas. 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Thanks for the help.  I spent the morning at Benjamin more selecting little pots of sample paint and I think I found a color for the stairs.  It is a little darker than the kitchen, but still in the fawn/taupe family.

If I were my own therapist, I would say what happened is that I painted over the red stairs and then panicked.  I don’t WANT things to change.  I don’t want to move. And I want my stairs to STAY RED just like I want everything else to stay the same.

Did I mention that when Mr. A sent in his application for the job, the BIG BOSS sent word the same day that he is very excited to see Mr. A’s resume?  And also Mr. A should call on the Boss’ personal number early this week so they can DISCUSS WHICH AREAS Mr. A is MOST INTERESTED IN?   This is a place where they get HUNDREDS (maybe thousands) of applications for each open position, for crying out loud.  And Mr. A gets to talk personally to the big boss and discuss which position might suit him best.  Sometimes I wish he wasn’t such a damn overachiever. 

I threw a little tantrum about it all, last night.  But this morning, I am back onboard and ready to paint.  So this train is moving forward, red stairs or not.