Eenie Meenie Miney Moe

We live in an old house that has lots of character. And by 'character' I don't mean unique architectural details or a quirky little room in the attic. More like cracking plaster walls, a complete lack of insulation and old clay drain pipes that will fail any day now. One of the features that gives our house 'character' is all the original wood on the main floor - baseboards, trim, plate rail and stairs. In theory, this should be a beautiful feature; the reality is that the wood's pretty banged up and it makes the house look gloomy.

If you watch any home design/renovation show (and I've had the chance to watch plenty these past few months) you know the answer to this dark wood problem: paint it out. Paint it all out.

So I've finally decided, after staring at all this depressing wood every single day for the past 11 months, that I'm going to paint it out. I'm going to start with the spindles on the stairs.

All things considered, this should be a pretty easy project - sand, prime, paint. But I'm already stuck on step one: pick a paint colour. I don't have a very good track record picking paint colours and with the 8 bajillion different shades of white available, this project ground to a standstill before it even got started. How to pick??

So I went to the paint store, spun around three times, clicked my heels and picked the colour that my finger was pointing to. Okay, that's not true - I asked the pimply 17 year old guy who was working there (I think he was working there) what were the most popular whites and he handed me four paint chip cards. I brought the cards home and taped them to the banister, where they've now been stuck for several weeks.

Here's a picture of the paint chips. Even allowing for my basic point-and-shoot camera and poor lighting conditions this is a pretty good representation of the paint chips - they all look the same. I've been looking at them for several weeks now and I can't tell the difference. I've checked them in natural light and artificial light, in the morning and in the evening, with my contacts in and half-blind, and I can't tell the difference. I've asked friends, family members, neighbours, the mailman and the guy who was trying to get me to buy a new water heater and they can't tell the difference.

So I turned to a more scientific analysis - the names of the colours. I have Cloud White (nice, as long as we're talking about those nice fluffy clouds and not storm clouds), Mountain Peak White (ok, as long as the peak has snow on it), Ivory White (sounds like the colour of a wedding dress) and Mayonnaise (ewww). I really like Mountain Peak White because in French it's called Soupirs de Bebe which means baby's sigh ... awwww. Although who knew that a baby's sigh was white.

Finally, I went with the colour my friend with the beautiful house and all the designers use: Benjamin Moore's Cloud White. The can is sitting proudly on the steps. Now I just need to get started.