The colorist
It was sweltering today in San Francisco -- it was probably in the low 90s -- and the farmer's market was jammed with limp natives and (slightly perkier) tourists. Devon was rather cranky today, and Walt was speculating it was because of the heat. One excellent benefit, however, is that the produce is looking fabuous; we got three huge bunches of basil for pesto this week and another flat of peaches. We're going to be heading to the poorhouse soon at the rate we're eating fancy organic peaches at urban prices! We also got some lemon verbena plants to plant at the apartment; Walt tried a transplant experiment with our existing verbena, but it doesn't look like it will be a success.
It's still too early for good tomatoes (although I'm expecting them to kick in during August), but we were considering taking a side trip to the Civic Center farmer's market tomorrow. That is a much more, ahem, urban market, the kind where people sell live chickens out of a truck; but it has one vendor from Santa Cruz who sells divine dry-farmed tomatoes. If you haven't had a dry-farmed tomato, you're missing out on the best possible tomato you can eat. He's also cheaper than the vendors at the Ferry Plaza (some of whom also sell dry-farmed tomatoes but at prices that make it prohibitive, say, to have tomato sandwiches for dinner on consecutive nights).
We meandered around the market for a long time, eating breakfast by the water, spending some quality time with Gandhi and shopping for produce. We had to go out to 8th after that, since Walt needed to make a quick run to Chu's to get materials finish off the stove fan vent project and then we were meeting a woman to help us pick colors for the apartment. Devon fell asleep on the way to Chu's, but Walt and I were talking and woke her up about 20 minutes into her nap -- she was super fussy and hot (she was obviously sweating) and never got back to sleep. Not a good sign for our appointment with the color consultant.
I'm feeling a little, in the words of my friend Sami, "bougey" -- bourgeoisie -- about hiring a color consultant. But even though I've done watercolor for a couple of years and do know something about color, I find that I'm not good at choosing paint for walls. I just have no sense of how a 1"x1" color swatch will look on 10' of wall, and more often that not, I get something that is either icky or just OK. Our friend Tricia, who is in my book club, recently finished an enormous remodel of her house and recommended that we spend the money to get a color consultant; her home does look lovely, and they used some colors (e.g. a dark green) that I would never consider on my own.
Devon, with only 20 minutes of nap, was a little terror when the color consultant showed up. The consultant ran into traffic on the bridge, so I took the opportunity to start washing our car, which truly has not been washed in over a year. How often is it 90 degrees in San Francisco, a temperature at which one actually wants to wash one's car? I thought perhaps play with the water would put Devon in a good temper (in this, sadly, I was entirely mistaken). We did at least get the car washed.
When Jennifer Thompson, the color consultant, arrived, she had two enormous paint color wheels and a couple of books with other color ideas in them. We took her through the apartment and explained how we'd be likely to use the rooms and then started in on looking at colors.
Walt and I had to tag-team on most of this, since Devon wanted no part of it (and in fact much of the time was trying to drag us outside -- and screaming if we didn't comply). This made it difficult to select colors, since ideally this is something that you want to do in a careful and considered way (and without a screaming kid). However, I think we did get some good selections and it will all come together nicely. I can say that it definitely helped to have someone who had expertise in color and had a good sense of how certain colors would look in large swathes across a wall.
We managed to get through the place in a couple of hours (which probably would have been less sans Devon) and with only a couple of major screaming fits (although Walt later told me that Devon managed to write in one of Jennifer's design books -- delightful). At the very end of this whole process, Devon kept wanting to knock on and turn doorknobs, so we went to the back porch and knocked on Burke's door. Surprisingly he answerd -- I thought he was at work -- and we came in. Devon quickly went to the couch where she settled in to the soporific of television. Of course this only happened in the last 10 minutes of the consultation, which made me quite sorry that we hadn't knocked on Burke's door quite a bit earlier...
It's still too early for good tomatoes (although I'm expecting them to kick in during August), but we were considering taking a side trip to the Civic Center farmer's market tomorrow. That is a much more, ahem, urban market, the kind where people sell live chickens out of a truck; but it has one vendor from Santa Cruz who sells divine dry-farmed tomatoes. If you haven't had a dry-farmed tomato, you're missing out on the best possible tomato you can eat. He's also cheaper than the vendors at the Ferry Plaza (some of whom also sell dry-farmed tomatoes but at prices that make it prohibitive, say, to have tomato sandwiches for dinner on consecutive nights).
We meandered around the market for a long time, eating breakfast by the water, spending some quality time with Gandhi and shopping for produce. We had to go out to 8th after that, since Walt needed to make a quick run to Chu's to get materials finish off the stove fan vent project and then we were meeting a woman to help us pick colors for the apartment. Devon fell asleep on the way to Chu's, but Walt and I were talking and woke her up about 20 minutes into her nap -- she was super fussy and hot (she was obviously sweating) and never got back to sleep. Not a good sign for our appointment with the color consultant.
I'm feeling a little, in the words of my friend Sami, "bougey" -- bourgeoisie -- about hiring a color consultant. But even though I've done watercolor for a couple of years and do know something about color, I find that I'm not good at choosing paint for walls. I just have no sense of how a 1"x1" color swatch will look on 10' of wall, and more often that not, I get something that is either icky or just OK. Our friend Tricia, who is in my book club, recently finished an enormous remodel of her house and recommended that we spend the money to get a color consultant; her home does look lovely, and they used some colors (e.g. a dark green) that I would never consider on my own.
Devon, with only 20 minutes of nap, was a little terror when the color consultant showed up. The consultant ran into traffic on the bridge, so I took the opportunity to start washing our car, which truly has not been washed in over a year. How often is it 90 degrees in San Francisco, a temperature at which one actually wants to wash one's car? I thought perhaps play with the water would put Devon in a good temper (in this, sadly, I was entirely mistaken). We did at least get the car washed.
When Jennifer Thompson, the color consultant, arrived, she had two enormous paint color wheels and a couple of books with other color ideas in them. We took her through the apartment and explained how we'd be likely to use the rooms and then started in on looking at colors.
Walt and I had to tag-team on most of this, since Devon wanted no part of it (and in fact much of the time was trying to drag us outside -- and screaming if we didn't comply). This made it difficult to select colors, since ideally this is something that you want to do in a careful and considered way (and without a screaming kid). However, I think we did get some good selections and it will all come together nicely. I can say that it definitely helped to have someone who had expertise in color and had a good sense of how certain colors would look in large swathes across a wall.
We managed to get through the place in a couple of hours (which probably would have been less sans Devon) and with only a couple of major screaming fits (although Walt later told me that Devon managed to write in one of Jennifer's design books -- delightful). At the very end of this whole process, Devon kept wanting to knock on and turn doorknobs, so we went to the back porch and knocked on Burke's door. Surprisingly he answerd -- I thought he was at work -- and we came in. Devon quickly went to the couch where she settled in to the soporific of television. Of course this only happened in the last 10 minutes of the consultation, which made me quite sorry that we hadn't knocked on Burke's door quite a bit earlier...
posted by Devon Szalva at
8:36 PM
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