ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 16, 1997 TAG: 9704160021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BEN BEAGLE
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
I, for one, would like to know what the world is going to be like once Martha Stewart takes it over.
You can laugh all you want to, but I found out she is now in the paint business - Martha Stewart Everyday Colors.
I mean, where does this tall blonde with the girl-next-door smile intend to stop?
I'll tell you one thing, I'd be kind of nervous if I were Mr. Goodwrench, or Sears or the owner of a chain of auto parts stores. Not to mention Donald Trump and the White House.
I'm glad my father, who was a housepainter and then some, isn't alive to see this.
Martha poses sweetly on an aluminum stepladder - not a drop of paint on her - as she brushes her product on a wall. I'll bet she doesn't do ceilings and that the help cleaned up and threw out all the disposable roller trays.
Painter's cap pulled down low
My old man, sometime in the early 1930s, posed with one foot on the running board of a truck about the size of a Sherman tank.
He's wearing a pair of white overalls with paint on them. A painter's cap is pulled down low on his head.
He's holding a bucket of paint and a six-inch brush in one hand - the other wrapped around the rung of a 60-foot wooden ladder attached to the truck.
I don't like to seem unfair, but I'd like to see Martha handle a 60-foot wooden ladder. Actually, I'd like to see me do the same thing.
A couple of years ago, I was trying to handle a 40-foot aluminum ladder that threw me approximately to the Floyd County line when it got the best of me.
My feelings on color palettes
In the brochure on her paint line, Martha says:
"Color has always been an integral part of my life. Every room I have designed has begun with a color palette created specifically for that room. I take into consideration many things when choosing colors for a room; the size of the space, the height of the ceiling, the ambient light, the purpose of the room, and the relationship of that room to its neighbors."
I don't know much about color palettes. When I'm told to paint a bathroom a certain color that's what I do. I don't even think about ambient light, to tell you the truth, Martha.
That's what husbands are trained to do; roll on or brush whatever color they are given and try not to get too much paint on the floor; the tiles; the commode, and the lavatory. And themselves.
I'm told the next bathroom I'm going to paint will be yellow - one of Martha's colors, as a matter of fact. I think the color of the floor had more to do with the choice of color than ambient light. This bathroom is too little to have ambient light.
That's the way it goes, Martha
It's not for me to decide if yellow flatters my skin tones.
I should also mention that Martha says painted walls should "change morning, noon and night, reflecting every different hour."
Although I mean no disrespect, I'd have to say my daddy might have thought he was having a really bad hangover if the wall color kept changing.
Martha's brochure quotes a painter by the name of Ferdinand Leger: "Man needs color to live. It's just as necessary an element as fire and water."
Ferdinand should feel free to paint my bathroom any time. He can also clean the brushes. In water, if he uses latex.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB