But, I really LIKE that color!

When I was a young teenager, I shared a bedroom with my sister. The room was done in (in decreasing amounts of) white, lavender, lilac, purple, blue, and touches of black. There were flowered patterns everywhere. My memory is of feeling as if I slept inside a gigantic hydrangea.

When I got older and graduated to my own bedroom, I chose orange walls, painted the furniture bright yellow and the molding bright pink. I pumped everything up with day-glo stickers in loud, secondary colors. (This was the late 1960's.) ... (Oh, and if you are into design and color, but have not read James Lileks' book Interior Desecrations, got hold of a copy and prepare to laugh yourself silly.) I really loved that room.

I have calmed down quite a bit since then.

But the point is, each of those rooms was meant for living. Nothing permanent was done. When the time came to marry and move on, my parents handed me a can of white paint and a paintbrush. My fiance got another paintbrush and we returned the room to a calm and boring color.

When you live in a home, it should be decorated to suit your style. If you, and everyone else living there, love purple and orange, then use paint to immerse yourself. Your home should make you happy.

BUT, even if you never, ever plan to sell your house, understand that day may come.

Do you want to make structural or semi-permanent, and very personal changes? For example, let's say you want to completely cover one wall with mosaic of orange and lavender flowers. When the time comes to sell, when your home becomes a house, that mosaic will will reduce the your pool of potential buyers. In that pool there are people do not want to buy a wall covered with someone else's mosaic. Some of them do not like the colors. Some of them do not like the look of mosaics. Some of them do not like gigantic flowers.

It is true some people in that pool will absolutely love that wall. And, one of them might be the first person to walk into your house. They may buy the house because of the mosaic.

But, the odds are, many months and several price reductions down the road, someone will buy the house planning to rip out and replace the wall.

Whenever you do anything personal and permanent to your house, you take a risk. It is your home and you have every right to do whatever you want to decorate it. Just keep the risk in mind.

Me. I would faux paint the wall with a huge mural that looks like a mosaic. Then, when it was time to sell, I would get out the old paintbrush.

Tomorrow we will start discussing wall colors. We will start the pro's and con's of white.

In the meantime, what are the wildest colors and designs you have ever enjoyed?