Smurfs who paint

When I was a little girl, I wasn't allowed to help paint. As an adult, I understand. Kids are messy, and who really wants to replace carpet because your precocious daughter spilled the entire can of paint on it? Flash forward 30 years, to my friends' trio of precocious Munch-kins begging to be able to help me paint. How could I refuse? As luck would have it, the Little Victorian has an addition - a mud room/pantry/storage area with tile floor. It's a nice, easy rectangle with a wipe-able floor!

I think not being able to paint back then, paired with living in rentals forever, has contributed to my obsession with painting just because I can. Yes, the mudroom desperately needed to be brightened up, as it was two tone gray. Gray is a dead color, and dead is the opposite of the energy I want to bring to this home. I think I went a bit overboard. Yes, I'm sure I went overboard. I've been wanting to use this bright, golden yellow in a kitchen or somewhere for almost 7 years, and the mudroom didn't move fast enough when we were playing tag.

Enter a $5 gallon of blue paint from the mistint shelf, and my mudroom is now a vibrant, if inadvertent, tribute to the University of Michigan. Go Blue! The kids had a blast, the accidents were minor, and nobody went home looking like a smurf.