Living with Swine
After sharing my 2011 Home Goals last week, I wanted to show some before photos to explain how many “swine walls” remain to be painted in my house. Yes, it’s thrilling Monday morning content—either motivating or slightly depressing, depending on how you look at it.
Let’s dig into this swine dilemma.
In the photo above you can see that I recently painted the dining room, but stopped partway through the wall that connects the dining and living rooms. Once you enter the living room, the swine color continues and would require painting beyond the dining room to create a cohesive look. That made the decision feel daunting, and I froze.
I’m notoriously bad at making decisions.
The amount of swine to tackle feels overwhelming. Photos don’t always capture the true effect, so a wall that appears acceptable in an image can still cast a sickly mauve glow in person—an effect that undermines the warm, inviting atmosphere I want. Here’s a clearer example of swine from an earlier before picture in my family room.
I’m more than ready to ditch the swine, but it won’t happen overnight. It will take steady work—painting wall after wall, room after room. One brush stroke at a time.
Look up, look down, look to the right and left—swine is everywhere.
Another collision of new paint and swine.
Swine covers so many surfaces: the living room, the entryway, and walls that continue up tall staircases and down long hallways. The scale of it is part of what makes the project feel intimidating.
Can you see why I’ve been overwhelmed? Some days I’d rather hide under the covers than deal with it. But every morning the walls are still there, a constant reminder and a little bit motivating in their own way.
And this is not even all of it. Every.single.bedroom, bathroom, office and the laundry room still have swine walls. I won’t show all those rooms now—that would make this post much longer and, frankly, more depressing. I’ll cover them in a separate post when I’m ready to face them.
That said, I have made progress in the Great Swine Cover-Up over the past year. Although I’ve been slow to recap my top projects from 2010—major fail on that front—I did manage to paint several rooms and make visible improvements during the year.
So the plan is simple: keep painting. One wall at a time, one room at a time, until the swine is gone and the home finally feels warm and intentional.