For Your Viewing Pleasure

Well ~ it's been over two years since I started this blogging journey, and I have never played with my basic template for it. I liked the black, simple, minimal layout; I still do. I find it very visually appealing. I like the contrast of the lighter colors with the dark. And, hey! It's black! It goes with everything, right? It's very clean without being completely stark or sterile, as I found the white version of the layout to be. (For my tastes, at least.)

I have come to the conclusion that I am not a white/cream color palatte kind of person. White on white on white, even with slight tonal and textural differences, would drive me nuts. That color palatte can lend itself to a clean professional designer look, and I know people that love decorating in that scheme, and their houses look fabulous. But it's not for me. Which means as long as we're living in our current very white-walled abode here in Texas (we're renting) there will probably be a daily heavy sigh as my gaze sweeps across the living room. Or any of the bedrooms, kitchen, or the dining room. Perhaps more than one sigh. I should probably set a daily limit.

I do love me some rich and/or vivid colors ~ I did a happy dance when we bought our home in Maryland, because I could finally escape the generic "apartment white" paint scheme I'd lived with all my life, even into adulthood (the exception being an old house with scary wallpaper in my early post-collegiate years). I painted my entry hallway and wall going up the staircase "fire engine red" in our Maryland home, if you recall* ~ but.

But I think a red or lime green background for the ol' blog may be just too much. Wasn't there a study done indicating that red was one of the hardest colors to see (in written format)? I think it related to whiteboard marker usage, if I recall correctly.

But maybe it's just my aging eyes, but it seems so much more difficult to read lighter print on a dark background than it is the "typical" way of dark print on a lighter background. Having your eyeballs assaulted by a backlit neon green screen while you are trying to decipher the text is also really not nice, and I really do want to be nice to all you people who are kind enough to stop in to see my latest musings/ramblings.

Either way ~ new state, new house, new look to the blog. We're all about transitions here. And preventing eyestrain.

It will probably change again in the next few days while I play around some more...I can't believe I haven't really messed with my blog set-up before now. I can't leave anything alone for very long. It has to be rearranged, altered somehow ~ whether "it" is furniture or recipes. Or artwork. I even go back and edit my blog entries after I post them -- and I never post them without some critical considering of the content. Most of the changes are due to errors, whether perceived or actual.

Did I mention that I am a card-carrying perfectionist, and even though my brain logically realizes that I'll never attain the truly perfect, I feel compelled to try anyway? So I expect I'll get something I'm (mostly) happy with layout-wise soon...and then I'll change it again after a while. Right now I'm playing with earthy colors on here, so we'll see where it goes.
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*when I made the decision to go with that bold red for the hallway/stairway/upstairs landing, my husband was skeptical. Or scared. Or both. Perhaps it is because I do have a habit of changing things up every so often, and red paint is very difficult to paint over (even with Kilz). Or perhaps his misgivings were because when we opened up the can, the paint looked more fuchsia than red in its liquid form. No worries, he loved it when it was finished and dry.