For once, I was excited about the condo board meeting: the paint committee was scheduled to reveal the choices of paint colors for our complex, currently a drab greenish-grey with ho-hum white trim, after which the residents would vote. The committee, however, could only come up with a single recommendation, a simple greyish-grey with white trim, and the rest of the board agreed to tell, not ask, the other residents about the decision.

Naturally, I voted No on both the paint and the telling. Good thing our complex has location-cubed to somewhat counter its meh appearance.

The committee hired a consultant who specializes in paint colors that increase property value, supposedly. In funky SC, it’s hard to believe that most folks are looking for drab; the houses along the nearest cross street certainly aren’t. This does possibly pre-select future residents.

Disregarding the fabulous colors of nature, from brilliant sunsets and glowing tropical flowers to misty mountain glens and shifting desert landscapes, as well as the fabulous colors of mankind, from the luminous paintings of Sargeant to the sinuous patterns of saris, certainly makes this consultant’s job easy. I don’t know whether she even proffered a single happy color. If so, this is another example of why compromise always produces a dumbed-down result.

I recently finished my annual jigsaw puzzle, an activity which alerts me to the enormous variety of colors in my attempts to match minute splotches. I am sure there are more than one hundred colors in this reproduction of a painting.* Very few are in the grey family.

Our family is fairly colorful. When our children were given their choices of room color, one choose black with red trim while the other chose lime green with orange polka dots. We did not blink. Happily, our neighbors in the duplex were also up for the challenge when we painted the exterior of our combined house, moving from brown/brown to red/blue. Others on the street were dubious when they heard about it, but most loved the result. There were a total of five adults and five children living in the house when we painted it, and the kids had a lot of input, though we rejected the shiny-steel look. Maybe kid-joy keeps the drab out.

I should mention that we have one concession to color in our new condo scheme: Our doors will change from red to blue.

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* Based on a painting by Sarsyn and Joah Trebeth.