To Paint or Not to Paint

If colors give a house flavor mine currently smacks of saffron and roasted chili peppers. This is not a bad thing, but I wonder sometimes if those are just a little too hot for Arizona. After all, the temperature is well over a hundred for extended periods (today included - plus the monsoons have set in), so maybe the house would feel cooler to me if it were filled with cooler colors.

The psychology of color is nothing new. Long before the days of air conditioning, Southerners helped "cool" their porches by painting the ceilings blue. Conventional wisdom dictates that light colors are cooler to wear, and even the latest science shows that painting roofs white reflects a good deal of heat away from houses. So whatever possessed me to paint my Valley of the Sun home in reds and golds? I blame the Food Network and HGTV for getting me hooked (about five years ago) on shows featuring Tuscan flavors and colors. When we moved into our house I had spent at least six months looking at my inspiration piece - a hand painted hat box featuring a Tuscan scene in reds and golds. Thus, the entire ground floor follows that color scheme (mostly because the rooms all open into each other and it makes sense for them to coordinate). However, at the top of the basement stairs, the golden saffron walls give way to a lighter shade of yellow which leads into the blues, whites, and blond woods of our casual basement rec room - where it is always at least five degrees cooler.

So, in the midst of monsoons and upon receipt of the June-July electric bill (ouch!), I am thinking about redecorating the house in lovely shades of ice blue with plenty of white trim and dark woods for contrast. At first, the idea seemed cost prohibitive because of the furniture, but when Jeff and I toured the place taking note of what would have to change with the wall colors, only one room required a great deal of alteration - the living room. We have been unhappy with this space for quite awhile anyway, so perhaps a change is in order. We decided to begin collecting paint chips, catalog photos, magazine designs to contemplate a shift in color palette. We know from experience that spending time planning gives us something to think about together as well as a shared vision - an important step in decorating any home. However, part of me longs to hop over to Lowe's first thing tomorrow, buy a gallon of paint, and start in my office. Have you ever done anything impetuous?