Revenge, I Now Know, Is Lime Green

/ Ally Bean

A few years ago I attended a good-bye party for a woman who lived across the street.  At this party were other neighbors who I met for the first time.  One was a nice woman who, until not too long ago, lived up the street.

During the party this woman got talking about her husband who feared color.  She told me that he would only allow her to have pure white walls and trim in their house.

Fear?  Allow?  Say what?!  What decade is this?

Naturally I was curious.  So I asked her how fear of color manifested.  I mean, I dislike certain shades of color but I do not fear them.  They are not my enemies.  I do not cower in their presence.

She told me that for her husband seeing anything that wasn’t uniform made him uneasy– so much so that different shades of any color, including white, were anxiety producing for him.  She also said that they had nothing hanging on the walls because that made him crazy, too.

I asked her if she, too, feared color.  But she didn’t.  In fact, she volunteered that she liked all colors a lot.

# # #

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I was out for a walk and saw a For Sale sign in the front yard of this couple’s house.

Not surprisingly, they had divorced.

She had kept the house for a while after the divorce, but now had put the property on the market using a realtor who always puts photos from inside the house on the For Sale sign outside the house.

When I got a close-up of the For Sale sign I almost couldn’t stop laughing.  On the sign was one large photo of the interior of this modern, open-concept house which features 14′ cathedral ceilings on the first floor.

And what color were these large dramatic walls inside this house?  They were a shade of citrus-y lime green so glaringly bright that parrots would look pale standing near them.  Bold + loud.  A decidedly in-your-face color.

Yes, that’s the color that this newly divorced woman painted the walls after all those years of living with a color-phobic husband.  And, damn, do those walls look good.  Finally.

Way to make a statement, girlfriend.  Way to go.  😉

27 thoughts on “Revenge, I Now Know, Is Lime Green”

  1. Yay your neighbour! Fabulous bit of revenge painting, probably the brightest, boldest, most in-your-face colour she could think of when she finally closed the door in her own space. How can anyone be colour-phobic?! The husband sounds like a thousand laughs. I would love to know how his sort of “crazy” manifested itself.

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    • Polly, I’d love to know more about this husband, too. I only got to talk with this neighbor in-depth at the one party. After that when I saw her there was either a group of people or we exchanged a fast wave. She seemed like such a nice woman to me, so I’m thrilled that she took a stand… finally.

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  2. Great story! I can’t really imagine living with such very bright walls, myself, but I do certainly enjoy color. My grandmother had a golden yellow (a bit mustardy, really) paint on her living room walls, and I loved the contrast with the white trim. In our house, we actually haven’t done much with color. Actually, in our house, we haven’t really done much with…our house.

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    • alejna, I’m sure that I couldn’t live with this particular lime green color, either. But you gotta give this woman credit for making a point. I still think that it’s darned weird that her husband only liked pure white on the walls with no artwork. That’s neurotic, imho.

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  4. I think lime green walls would give me a headache – but I can sure understand the desire after years of pure white. Color-starved sounds like a perfect descriptor. I wonder how her husband was able to function in a world that has more than one color.

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    • Zazzy, I’m not lining up the painters to have our home painted lime green, I can tell you that. But knowing what I know about this woman, I get why she did it.

      And I, too, wonder about how he functioned. I’m sure that there’s more to this story than we’ll ever know.

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  5. No way could I have ever been involved with a man like that! I wonder how they met and what qualities she saw in him at first. Life IS color!!

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    • Beth, you & me both! I get that not everyone wants intense colors on their walls, but with about a gazillion shades of white available– his behavior is just plain bonkers. As for their history, not a clue about it.

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  6. I’m not color phobic, but that lime green would unsettle me. After being in a smaller, older, dark house for 10 years of marriage, I loved moving into a bright and light (mostly white, with accent colors) modern house with cathedral ceilings. I do have stuff on my walls but am a minimalist after dealing with too little space and too much clutter in our old house. 🙂

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    • Margaret, I’m not keen on that much of that color either. I think that there’s a big difference between having a minimalist style & refusing to have anything on your walls. The first is a choice, the second is more than a little peculiar.

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      • Oh, I agree. My husband’s mom and sister had to have every inch of wall space covered in paintings, hangings, etc. with knick nacks(sp?) everywhere. My mom and I call that stuff “dust collectors.” The husband sounded wacky, like he belonged in the very white walls of an asylum.

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        • Margaret, I’ve been in homes like the one you describe. My mother called that stuff the same thing as your Mom. I find that style of decorating to be unfocused + claustrophobic. I like you idea for the husband; maybe SW needs to have a shade of white called Asylum White! 😉

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  9. feared color? wow – that is a new fear! he would twitch in my house… I think I have all the colors of the rainbow!

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    • Hilary, I know! I’d never heard anyone say that before this woman mentioned it. Kind of… wacky, to put it politely. The same here with the color: we got it & we like it. Poor man would have a conniption fit when he walked in the door.

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