Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

My husband bought me a house three years ago. He was under the mistaken
illusion that it was my dream house, and in a fit of impetuous stupidity, spent too
much for too big a place. I have learned to appreciate its charms but it is not what
I would have chosen with solid planning. Now that the markets have all cooled
(he’s an investor and was temporarily insane over his riches), it is ours for a very
long time. It is also time to paint the outside. I want to paint it green and he wants
to paint it blue. We’ve had many arguments over this one. He has a lot more time
to argue these days. How can we decide, since there’s no good compromise that
isn’t a muddy ugly mess?
Not Color Blind
Dear Not Color Blind
You could argue that since he bought it for you that you should get the final vote.
Paint color, unlike a meal, is something that lasts a long time. While you might
grow immune to it over time, it would be better to get it right.
Drive around and look at houses. Note that painting season has many months to
go, so you have time. Identify the right painter (get references!) and line him up
for July or August. Then identify every house that has a color you like. Hubby
should do the same. Once you have good visuals to share you can discuss until
someone caves. Then of course there’s trim color, but white vs beige vs color is
small compared to blue vs green. Then go to paint websites where you can
choose a house style like yours and pretest combos. No matter what, you must
experiment with tester colors in various parts of the house that see different
amounts of sun and shade. Fifty or a hundred dollars spent getting it right is
peanuts compared to the thousands you will spend for the whole job. Getting it
wrong after “winning” would be really sad, and open the door for too many I told
you so’s.