Brooke here:

When we first bought the house, Brown and I looked at the budget and came to the (very easy) decision that we couldn’t afford to do all that we wanted to the house prior to moving in.   At the top of the list was repainting the master bedroom; in our old bedroom, we felt comfortable knowing that there would be some forensic record if one of us should rise up and slay the other.  That ain’t happening in the Murder Room.  Deep cranberry-maroon walls and a . . .  I don’t even know what color it is . . . mauve?  Dark tea rose? . . . reddish carpet would welcome blood stains.   Some distant day, one of us would look over at the other and think: No one would ever know.

I’m not sure what the previous owners wanted out of this particular color scheme, but it probably had something to do with the wallpaper.  Apparently, as recently as 2003 (or so the sticker on the back of the switchplate claims), a vivid pink-and-green floral print wallpaper covered every inch of the master bedroom sans trim.  Walls, ceiling . . . not kidding.  The previous owner mentioned staring up at her wallpapered ceiling.  There’s a last gasp of the original wallpaper in the master bedroom closet and the carpet matches the pink (salmon? light puce?) rather closely.

The last week has been spent stripping trim and priming the room for new paint.  I’d like to take the trim down to the bare wood, but as the layer of oil paint under the latex is probably original to the house (1958), it’s likely got quite a lot of lead in it.  The oil stays, sadly, but has been lightly sanded to accept a new coat.  And if the room had wallpaper at one time, you’d never know it – murder aside, the paint job was of very good quality.  I don’t like to prime anything, as primer adds another layer of crap to a wall and most old houses have been repainted so frequently that the paint is almost pliable.  The Murder Room, though, seems positively fresh.  If it weren’t for the color, I wouldn’t have to prime at all. . .  I’ve done a very thin layer of primer with a brush pad to reduce the color saturation, and two coats of paint and new carpeting will knock it down from a felony to accidental manslaughter.