My dear friend is moving to Minnesota. : ( She was one of the first people I met when I moved here and I feel our meeting & friendship was not an accident. Before her house went on the market she asked me to walk through it with a buyer's eye to help her get it ready to show. It's difficult when you go into a house and all you can see is
LOVE &
WARMTH &
HOME!
As you know, I've been so inspired by all the transformations using spray paint going on in blogland that when she told me she was going to replace her brass dining room fixture with a new one I forwardly said, 'Oh! No! you should just spray paint it!' - like I even knew what I was talking about - like I had SO much spray painting experience - like I hadn't been dying to try it out on my own blah! kitchen fixture but was too chicken to do it. *At that moment all I could hear were the little voices from the Life cereal commercial 'I don't wanna try it, you try it.' Next boy,'I'm not gonna try it, you try it.' 'Hey, Mikey!'*
Well, next thing I knew, I had offered to take the light and spray it for her if she picked up the paint. I already had a spraying station set up in the garage because I was working on my 90's table makeover.
* more on that here* Just love how empowering a can of spray paint can be! She was so excited because she was getting rid of the brass and I was excited because I love doing this kind of stuff! This is where I wish I could say I spayed it. It's beautiful. It's what clinched the sale. We all lived happily ever after!
However... have you ever been to the store at Halloween and there are all of those graveyard accessories that are painted silvery/gray but totally look like plastic? Uuumm - that's what I did to her light! Seriously, in her mind's eye she thought she would be getting this:
And what I did for her was this:
I was truly horrified! Handy Hubby : ) helpfully asked me what I was going to do because there was no way I should return the light looking like that! There's only one chance to make a good first impression, he wisely imparted. And when she called after her son's soccer game to get an update with her optimistic enthusiasm... it went to voice mail...
Cocky me had taken the first picture on a hardware store run with HH just to show my friend how much she was saving by spray painting her light. I had a sinking feeling it was turning out to be a note to myself of how much it was going to cost to replace the one I ruined. Finally I sucked it up and made the call to let her know the situation. She said she didn't believe me, that I was too hard on myself and that at this point anything was an improvement. So I ran right over to her house with only the ball and chain from her light and she almost fell over laughing. She had to admit it really looked like plastic!
I took a deep breath, looked her straight in the eye and said, 'I know you trusted my advice the first time and it didn't exactly work out , buuuuut IF I may be so bold as to make another suggestion...' At this point she should have wrapped me up with the ball and chain and kicked me out. Kind, loving friend that she is said, 'Ok. I trust you.' And you wonder why I love her?! *sigh*
My idea was to respray the light with a bronze hammered metal finish like this:
The cream shades are a nice look too.
Thankfully, the second spray turned out much better! Crisis averted!! Yay!
Turns out she had been stashing a trio of light fixtures in her basement for a couple of years that she always meant to hang in the kitchen - wouldn't ya know, they were a bronze metal finish! Now both rooms are coordinated! How perfect is that?! This light story is like a metaphor for life, isn't it? - Our prayers are always answered just not always in the way we imagined!
And as for my dear friend, who has been a light in my life for the last few years, she didn't want to move so far away but her husband's new job opportunity was not an accident. They are being led there for a reason. She touched my life during a dark period and has staked her place in my heart forever. The distance won't change that. Perhaps someone else needs her now. I suppose it's time for me to pull up my big girl panties and stand on my own two feet.
Speaking of which, we got together recently to celebrate friendship and to de-stress from the sale of their house. We took a risk and bonded over paint again...
...but this time it was of a different variety : )
Blessings!
MLE
for Amy : )
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