Pain(t) In The Butt.

I suppose there are many milestones as new parents await the arrival of their child including the first sonogram, assembling the crib, the baby shower,etc. I am genuinely excited about all of them, save one-painting the baby's room. You see, on my Scale of Unpleasant Things painting ranks somewhere between single-ply toilet paper (senseless!) and people who refer to themselves in the third person (insufferable!). And equal to people who carelessly overuse exclamation marks while blogging (annoying!!!). So with my negative build-up it is little wonder that I have had a rough time completing this important task. My mom even volunteered to help me because she enjoys painting. Seriously. I'm convinced she was afraid I would half-ass the job.

We are going with a jungle theme in the nursery and have purchased a cute set bedding set that includes a wallpaper border. We decided to place the border at chair rail height and paint the walls below it a green to match the green in the border. Trouble is, the manufacturer of the border apparently invented a new color green for this particular border. Because I can't find a green paint to match. ANYWHERE. I have multiple sample cards from several paint stores. Granny Smith? Too light. Pepper Grass? Too dark. Green Grapes? Too grapey.

Actually, let me backtrack. On my first attempt I actually bought a gallon of paint. Under the flourescent lights of the hardware store Riverview looked like a winner. On the walls of the nursery, however, Riverview looks, perhaps ironically, but not amusingly, like babyshit green. Amanda and my mom thought this was pretty funny because a blind man could have picked a better match for the border. I protested about the flourescent lights, but they weren't buying it. Mom and I then selected samples from a different store. None matched perfectly, but appeared to be in the right neighborhood. Until we got outside in the sunshine. Out of the flourescent light they weren't even close to matching. My mom said she wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't been there herself. It was some vindication for my earlier miscue, but little consolation because I still don't have any paint. Tomorrow Amanda and I will venture out to try again. Given my recent paint history, I'm betting tomorrow will be a doozy.