Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Some persons are very decisive when it comes to avoiding decisions. ~Brendan Francis

Okay, I'm going to put this out there right away. When it comes to non-work related topics, I am NOT good at making decisions, and try to defer to others when possible. I don't struggle with what direction to take a work-related project, and am confident in the decisions that I make for clients and my team, but somehow that confidence gets left at the door (or, perhaps at the keyboard) when I switch from work-mode to personal mode.

Personal decisions are something I try to avoid. When it was time to go to college, I briefly debated one other school before choosing Lakeland, but I didn't want to have to choose. So, I only filled out one college application, and only put one school down to receive my ACT scores and FAFSA information. In all fairness, my entire family is rather indecisive. Choosing where to go for lunch on a Saturday while shopping has sometimes taken my mom and I more than an hour, back and forth saying "You pick, no you pick." When my mom wants to paint, she brings home paint charts with about 25 different shades of white, and looks at them for WEEKS before selecting "just that right shade."

On occasion, I can make a quick decision on something. Ironically, the bigger and more permanent the decision, the quicker it seems to come for me. Case in point, when I was looking to buy a place 6 years ago, I went to two open houses, then saw a family friend outside of her new condo. When I walked in, I knew that's what I wanted, and in less than 72 hours I had secured financing and placed an offer on my home.

Don't misunderstand me, I do have ideas for what I want, but when faced with CHOOSING something that I hadn't already predetermined, it's ugly. When I put in the offer on my condo, I knew which of the two layouts I wanted (it was rather simple, I didn't want a shared driveway for two reasons: (1) I was afraid that my neighbors would park on my half of the driveway when I was out of town, and when I came home I couldn't get into my garage and (2) there are a handful of people I know who I could see not using common sense and parking on the neighbor's half of the driveway, thus creating the same problem for them that I wanted to avoid. I also knew that I did not want yellow siding; I wanted oak woodwork; I absolutely did NOT want that frieze carpet, as I could only imagine how that would collect cat fur; I didn't want brass doobs or cabinet pulls; and I didn't want any wall sconces. Fortunately, because I put an offer in on a completed place, the contracter made the decisions on anything I didn't have an opinion on.

Unfortunately, when I jumped into this remodel, I wasn't prepared for all of the choices I was going to have to make. I don't mean the furniture, like when I initially furnished the condo, I had an idea of what I wanted, and both times I just knew when I'd found the right pieces. In the beginning, some things made my decisions easier. Picking a sink was easy - I wanted to stick with the same manufacturer that I had for my upstairs plumbing, and if I didn't want to special order the home improvement store only had two styles - oval and rectangular. Picking a cabinet was pretty easy, since I knew I wanted something to compliment what I had upstairs. So, I wasn't fully prepared for tonight's shopping excursion.

When I was done with work for the day, my mom and I went to a local flooring store. YIKES, not only did I have to pick the style of carpet (still didn't want Frieze, but did I want plush or burbur, patterned or plain, what color). Making that decision took a while, but I am pretty sure I have an idea. Once the laminate is laid in the bar area, I'll bring a sample home and make my final decision. Next, we headed down to the home improvement store to pick up the primer/sealer for the drywall so Dad could spray that tomorrow. Next up in the process is painting both rooms. Initially, I thought that I had things picked out, but I like the texture on the walls so much I've decided not to do the Venitian Plaster in the bathroom.

As for the rec room, I know I want to do a specific style of painting, but the colors are still up in the air. So, instead of bringing home paint, I brought home lots and lots of paint samples (at least they're not all white). I have been staring at these for the past hour and a half and am no closer to making a decision than when I started.

For a variety of reasons, I need to get the painting done this weekend, preferably finishing the bathroom after work, leaving Saturday for the rec room itself, so I need to decide rather quickly. Some of the folks I work with have a joke that stems from long ago. When we find ourselves trying to troubleshoot something, we'll go wash our hands and hope for an Epiphany on what to do (ironically, it does seem to work most of the time - probably because we stop focusing so hard on the issue at hand). So, I'm going to go to bed, and hopefully when I get up in the morning, I'll wash my hands and the color choices will just come to me. If not, then in the next set of pictures I post, expect to see everything painted white.