The walls remained half painted in the playroom of the house where Steven, his wife and their three young boys lived. Right now though, he is the only inhabitant. There is not even a pet. No dog, cat, fish, bird in a cage, ant farm or pet rock for that matter. In fact, Steven has never had a pet in his life. His dad once owned some bird dogs when he was young, but let’s not count those who are never played with and lived in small cages deep in the back yard.
Their house in south Tucson doesn’t have a large grassed yard like the one he grew up in. The front yard is graveled and the back yard came as just sandy dirt, though they have trimmed round the sides and back of the house with small river rock to protect the foundation from the monsoon rains when they come in late June. They build houses close together and of similar design in a master planed community like this. The Stuccoed one level 4 bedroom with masonry fence round the yard and flat ceramic tile roof has seen in almost two years now. The settling cracks in the corners are mostly covered over by the recent painting.
How nice it is to have walls one can paint after living for the last 9 years in 4 different apartment complexes. The Crawley’s have gone for varied color in the house. Not bright color but ones representing all major hues. Muted purple in their bedroom. Pale blue and green in the babies and older boys’ rooms respectively. A cream-sickle color in the hallway and a sandy color in the bathroom all of which was painted last time the boys made this trip to Texas a year and a half ago when the house was very new.
This is round two and some of the umph has gone out of them both. This round will have seen UT orange in the living room, alizarin crimson on one wall in the kitchen as an “accent wall”, warm tan in the rest of the kitchen and light yellow ochre in the playroom. Of course these aren’t technically the right color names, Steven Doesn’t think of them by their names on the cans, which they carefully picked out at Lowes; And it was Lowes, this year they drove to 2 home depots before they realized last times years choice had been Lowes and if they want to compare paint chips with those already used they should to go back there. He instead thinks of colors as he would mix them with his oil paints to work on a painting, the kind that he does on stretched canvas with little brushes, not on walls with rollers.
The playroom, dining room and living room are actually all open to each other as one long space on one side of the house. Steven and Lynnette both like the way the ceiling goes up towards the center, except in the hallway, though it does make more wall to paint. Especially in the kitchen which is located centrally. Getting way up there to finish the trim above the fridge and cabinets is not something Steven looks forward to.
