The Violet Vengeance

The first thing to understand about my house is that it is the architectural equivalent of Barney.  It is aggressively purple, so much so that the first words out of the mouths of new visitors are almost invariably “It’s so… purple.”

In my defense, the house was this colour when we got it, which is probably why we got a good deal for our area, which tends to prefer boring neutrals.  As the house is tall and on a hill, the purple is visible from about a block away. Since buying the house, every time I meet neighbours they immediately ask when I’m going to repaint.  After five years here, we did repaint last year. Much to their dismay, we used the same color (Sherwin Williams 6818 Valiant Violet) I also dyed my hair to match, so there’s just no mistaking who belongs in the purple house.

Right now I'm working to give the interior some character to match the paintjob. I'll be posting project pictures and ramblings here.

On nice days, I fly a jolly roger from the balcony and pretend the whole house is a pirate ship.  It’s been christened The Violet Vengeance, and it is the scourge of the neighbourhood.

 

I moved to The Violet Vengeance from a crappy apartment in the middle of the city.  My apartment building was cinderblock with an awesome view and a glass elevator which can best be described as treacherous. The first time I had pizza delivered, the delivery guy asked, “Were you here when they found the body in the dumpster?”   The building was month-to-month and falling apart. I had cracks in my ceiling and crack-dealers across the street.  My toilet was pink! My stove was chicky-yellow! There were roaches! It was a building full of character and stories. I still miss it.

The Violet Vengeance, while not exactly in a suburb, is outside of the main downtown core.  It’s high-density residential, my neighbours’ houses are within five feet of mine. When I moved here, I thought having a house would be all fun and games, and that neighbours would come over to borrow cups of sugar while they were making me cookies. In other words, everything I knew about living in a real neighbourhood, I learned from the television. I grew up in the kind of area people go to when they don’t want to have to acknowledge that anyone lives nearby.  On moving here I was plagued by questions the television hadn’t answered for, and was constantly calling friends for advice. “Do I leave my porch light on all night?” (My friends say yes on this one.) “Do I call the cops on the kids bouncing balls off my house?” (Friends: No.) “Is it normal for the neighbours to leave weird passive-aggressive notes about how late I come home at night?” (Friends: Every neighbourhood has a crazy nosy lady; we thought it would be you).  Overall, the reality of ‘hood life has left something to be desired, both in terms of the people and the house.  The VV was built in 1991, and the construction is soulless, boring, and terrible. Other than the paintjob, it lacks any sense of fun or whimsy or… me.

My mother’s family ran a lumber yard while I was growing up, and my parents built their house from scratch. At the tender age of five, I was given a hammer and regularly enlisted in the building process.  My father also did a stint as a contractor when I was in college, and people actually wanted to build things.  Somehow, this all instilled in me a drive to change and improve the space I live in. Or maybe it was a million episodes of Trading Spaces back when I had cable. Either way, I’m currently on a mission to personalize my space to my crazy taste, while still being able to revert back to blah-mode when it’s time to sell.  I think it’s safe to assume that the neighbours will continue to not make me cookies.