Monday, September 13, 2004

Let there be COLOR!

COLORS!
Please don't ever let me join a condo association or live in a monochromic gated community. This weekend I read an article about a pink house in the burbs (Chicago Tribune). The family wanted to add some personality to their home so the mom decided on salmon pink. Not long after the bright pink home made its debut, the harsh reviews began rolling in. It is too bright and loud - the neighbors said. The other homes in the community are a gray tune. After the uprising, the owners relinquished and toned down the pink so it blended better with its surroundings. Some neighbors are still not satisfied, but that's how the house will stand. Unless, some color visionaries fight back, and the community is devoured by colors.

Why be afraid of colors? One thing I loved about San Francisco was the multicolored homes. In fact, I wouldn't mind having a purple house. Furthermore, visit Latin America and you'll see Latinos aren't afraid of colors.

Then there was a column on what condo associations can do so they don't overwhelm or scare new tenants. I don't like the idea of a group not letting you be an individual and showing some uniqueness. These stories reminded me of that X-file episode when Mulder and Scully posed as a married couple to investigate murders in a gated community. In the episode, the neighbors didn't like Mulder's tacky basketball hoop in the driveway among other things. Of course, there was some grass monster the community worshipped; those who did not comply with the rules were killed by Grassy.

Let's not stifle our creativity, please!

3 comments:

Aleksu said...

One time a friend and I were discussing freedom, he insisted that we indeed lived in the land of the free, I retaliated by saying that it was a sad state of affairs when we enjoyed all that freedom and we used it to decide between four basic colors for the siding on our houses: white, off white-grey, off white-pink and off white-yellow.

That was the first time he realized those are the only four colors for the houses in our entire town.

Anonymous said...

Sandra Cisneros had to fight a tough battle to keep her victorian home purple. The historic association in the district she lived in did not consider the color 'historic'--Sandra said it was to the Mexican community in San Antonio. She got to keep the color but I later heard her say that homes in the midwest are the color of our weather--and I have to agree that for the most part they are.

AnalisaGuzman said...

I wish there was more color in our houses. Oh well!