WARNING Should not be left alone with a paint chart

 Otherwise I will end up with a banister that looks like this:

It seemed like a good colour when I chose it from the chart in the shop. One of those absolutely-every-colour-in-the-world charts.

I had gone to the paint shop with a colour in my mind. If only it had been written on paper instead.

'I think it's called wheat something. Maybe grain.'

The very obliging gentleman in the little local shop looked it up on his magic mixing machine. 'There's a wheat grass,' he said.

'Oh, that sounds like it.'

He brought a picture to show me.'

'Oh no, that's definitely not it.'

'That's the only wheat colour. Could it be oat?' he said.

'Possibly.' I shrugged. 'I really should have written it down.'

And that's when he got out his chart.

Do you have any idea how many greens there are? Do you know how quickly you lose any colour identification ability? Do you know how impossible it is to properly remember what colour the hall has just been painted?

'That looks nice,' I said, pointing to one green. I should have read his next words as a warning.

'Ha ha, it'll certainly be different,' he chuckled.

Why didn't I register that laugh? 

I've never thought of painting the hand rail a darker colour before but as it's the most used bit it seemed like a good idea and the examples I saw on google all looked lovely. Of course you don't need a lot of paint to just do hand rails. And equally of course they don't mix paint in very small size tins.

So I bought a litre and brought it home for Husband to do his bit.

When I saw it mid-afternoon yesterday I said, 'Oh.'

'Yes indeed,' Husband said.

'That's a bit brighter than I was expecting.'

'Well, I'm not changing it!'

I waited until bedtime. 'I really don't like that colour. Have we got anything we could mix with it?'

Husband grunted, 'No.'

This morning I said, 'We're going to have to change it.'

Husband sighed.

Back to the paint shop this morning, having browsed the internet again and chosen and written down a colour.

'I want Dulux Fresh Sage colour please.'

We looked on the basic colour charts and he looked it up on the magic machine. No such colour.

He brought out the every-colour-in-the-world chart. 'No! No! Please no!'

I'd taken the tin of emulsion with  me. 'What about if I mix you a satinwood in the same colour?' he said, obviously realising we could be there some time.

'Mm, that would work. Although I did want it a bit darker ... could we ... no, no, that'll be fine. Just do that, please.'

I'll let you know later how it looks. 

And if you know anyone who wants a nearly full tin of bright green satinwood paint just send them in my direction.