The Bug...............

Ok -- the Christmas decorations are slowly finding their way back to the attic. It is gloomy and gray outside. It is time for me to get ........... The Bug.

Yep! Every year, right after New Year's, I get the decorating bug. I come by it naturally. I won an Ethan Allen decorating contest almost 40 years ago. I've sold custom draperies, floor coverings, furniture and designed kitchens. I take waaay too many design magazines and I still have the recording of a speech that Mark Hampton gave in Chicago 20 years ago. I'm a bit of an addict!

But, as many of you know, Honey and I suffer from "medical-bill-hell" so no trips to the Mart to peruse Harden's or Baker's latest collection. No custom furniture -- no expensive rugs -- no designer fabrics or Scalamandre' trim. Nope!!! I am going to be cheap and creative........... I hope. No -- I will be cheap. I hope I am creative.

So the first step --- cover my walls in paint samples. As you can above -- my wall is already a sage green. 90% of the samples there are various shades of sage green. And the creams and the whites .......... one of those will be trim. The last time I did that -- I covered my bathroom walls with robins-egg blue samples. Then painted the bath a deep barn red! Obviously, that didn't do any good!

So I will look ................. and debate .............. and move the samples to another wall.............. and look .............. and debate.

And Spring will come ................... and 6000 annuals will arrive on my porch, demanding immediate attention.

And I still won't have made a decision on color.

But I will have accomplished my goal...................... I was cheap.