The Rainbow Connection

“Someday we’ll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me”

Stella’s every room has color, only the ceilings and trim are white. Recently our builder called Stella his rainbow build.

At the time he said it, I told him I thought it was a snarky comment. He assured me it was not so I wondered if he also had swamp land to sell in Florida. Tonight I’ve made an association with the comment to Kermit’s The Rainbow Connection and although not a rainbow color, I’m tickled pink!

I’m tickled because John and I have made beautifully flowing, connected color choices and because I’ve loved Kermit’s The Rainbow Connection since it was used as the background music to my son’s first public performance – a recital as it were, by his gymnastics class/team when he was 5 years old. I can see him and his teammates performing their routine as Kermit sang about rainbows and dreaming. In my quirky way of doing things, my son’s connection to the new house is now more deeply embedded. I’m loving that!

With the exception of the laundry room color, which is Passion Fruit (and is blindingly bright, so say John and Sharon, and I can tell you this right now, bright will be no excuse for avoiding the laundry room!), our color choices pretty much fall in the earth tones category. If the second coats enrich what is already on the walls as we hope they will, we’re going to be very pleased.

In addition to the paint, electricity is now running through the wires of the house. Electricity equates to lighting and heating. Heating equates to floor installation. We didn’t get much time to admire the hardwood floors before they were protectively covered for the inside work that remains to be done, but John did get to leave the front porch light on for a couple nights before I told him he really should stop wasting electricity.

Our framer returned and framed in the garage and John’s brewery. He also put up as much roof sheathing as was possible. The remainder awaits the installation of support columns for the carport. A couple days of unusually warm weather (80 degrees!) allowed for the pouring of the cement for the garage floor. A couple days of unusually warm weather also ushered in 3″ of rain and that rain has prevented continued work on the garage and carport as the ground is once again too wet for foundation work for support columns. However, the framer did manage to get the breezeway roof framing and sheathing in before Christmas. Oh, the miracles of Christmas!

I’ve been mentally working on the railing design for the front and side porches. The subcontractor made up a section sample of the railing for me and while the garage floor (and the brewery floor) was being poured and finished, I gave the sample a coating of black paint. I liked it. John and I believe we want black railings because they give an illusion of disappearing from sight where white railings seem to draw the eye to them. With looking at the black sample placed in different spots on the porches and viewing pictures taken from varying angles, we both agree that black is the way we want to go. The pickets are round rather than square; the round matches the column shape. There will be rectangular posts at the ends and in the center, larger yet proportional in size for connection, stability, and strength. As the rails come down the steps, I would like them to slightly flare to the side at the bottom. Hard to picture, I suppose, but I got it, it’s all in my head.

We don’t know what will be next on the construction agenda, but we hope cabinetry soon finds its way there along with drying weather so that more concrete can be poured. We’re happy, but since all the delays may have brought about greed tendencies in us, we’d like to find ourselves happier.

Yes, we hope someday we’re connected to the rainbows of our interior house paint (or to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow)…the lovers, the dreamers, and us!

Kitchen looking into the family room

Kitchen looking into the family room

The garage finally has a floor

The garage finally has a floor

The illusionary black railing

The illusionary black railing