Eco-office makeover, part 2

A couple of weeks ago, I brought you along for the first step in my office makeover, which started with a rug from FLOR.

Next up I was going to do something with my desk (actually a banquet table), but instead, I decided to paint the back wall. Here’s what it looked like before I started.

Confession time. This step really is not exactly an eco-friendly one.

I’d had some some green paint mixed years ago but never got around to painting. And when I searched for it, it was nowhere to be found. No doubt we’ll discover it ten years from now when we move! Rather than buy new, I decided to use up leftovers from when I’d painted the kitchen.

Note that this was quite a sacrifice for me as I had my heart set on a particular green. But what I really had my heart set on was getting some color in that beige room and blue, especially this blue, definitely is color!

In the can, it’s robin’s egg blue, but here was my lesson for today. On the walls, it turns quite a bit darker.

Actually at one point I happened to lay down Tiffany’s ad from the Sunday paper to protect the floor and you can see how close they look.

But once it dries, it’s more the color of a robin’s egg that’s been around too long. I think that’s because the color underneath is a light beige, not white. If I’d wanted to take the time, I could have slapped on a coat of white first, but perfection is very rarely my goal, “good enough” is good enough. But at least next time I’ll know.

This leftover paint was about six years old. It dates from the time before I’d ever heard of VOCs and knew that we should try to avoid them. Once again, my cheapness overcame my devotion to unadulterated green (although drying out almost an entire can of paint so it can be taken to the dump doesn’t feel very eco to me either). But I opened the window and kept the fan on while I was painting and until I was too cold to type. Will repeat that procedure for a few days so hopefully it will off-gas toward the outside so I’m not breathing in the fumes (which I can’t even smell now, only a few hours after I wrapped up, but then, you can’t smell CO2 either).

Happily there is a growing list of companies that make no VOC paint. I’ll definitely look for it next time (assuming there is one).

Anyway, I got the wall taped and painted in about three hours despite my paranoia about knocking the paint container off the table and splashing it all over the wood floors (I’m known for being a tad clumsy—which, in my own defense really isn’t clumsiness but inattention to things like walking so I trip a lot—so this actually is a rational fear rather than a paranoid one). I’m also not as limber as I used to be and bringing the ladder in from the garage, moving the furniture, situating the ladder and climbing up and down it at least three dozen times, along with first painting along the tape with a brush, then rolling everything else, made me very glad I hadn’t decided to paint the whole room!

I’m happy with how it looks though, especially from the living room.

Note that the walls which appear yellow definitely are not. They’re beige like in the top two pictures. If they were yellow I wouldn’t have needed to paint my office at all!

Here’s the view with the FLOR rug as you walk in.

What do you think? Next up, the desk!

P.S. Four hours after finishing, I literally tripped over the green paint out in my studio. I’d torn the place apart looking for it as well as the garage where we keep most paint stored. How did it materialize right in front of me after I’d finished walking on the treadmill is one of those mysteries that I place right up there with the building of the pyramids!

Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.