orange.

We have been wanting to paint the inside of our house since day one.

We initially thought the white was simply boring. It was when we noticed that our walls were a slight shade of pink, complete with white ceilings and assorted colors of tile: cream, blue fake stones, blue flower power, and still more light pink, that the painting seemed more imperative.

Unfortunately, we have been told that when landlords see that you have “settled” into the home, they are more keen to raise rent, because they believe you’ll just pay it rather than move. Painting is one of the key factors we’ve heard mentioned.

We were quite worried our landlord would raise rent on us as we approached the end of our one-year contract. That is, until I asked our office manager, who talks with our landlord and helps us with such business.

She laughed, and said, “I think your landlord will do anything for you to stay. I think they are afraid no one else will rent a house there.”

So perhaps the fact that we chose to live in a poorer part of town, namely where many Burmese migrants are, is to our advantage. Apparently Thais don’t particularly like living nearing the migrant communities, and the foreigners are afraid of being robbed.

We love it.

We love our neighbors, and we pretty much love our house with all its quirks.

So we thought we might negotiate down a little on price. It seemed bold; not many foreigners hope for a lower price, some even have a yearly percentage increase in the contract. We thought we’d start low so we had room to bargain. We asked for 1,500 baht less per month, and told them we’d give back all the furniture that came with the house.

They took the price, and said we could keep the furniture.

That’s 25% less per month for two more years!  We were pretty excited. It’s about $50 per month, but that’s huge to our budget.

Really, much bigger than I could express. Our lives are quite cheap here.

Anyway, all this to say: we felt the freedom to paint now!  And we figured, if we’re going for it, go bold or go home.

We started with orange in the kitchen.

How else do you compliment bright blue tile with a fake stone design? I suppose you can either fight it–gray or more blue, which heaven only knows our house does not need more shades of blue!–or embrace it.

We called it burnt orange initially, and I suppose that’s kind of how we talked ourselves into it.

But if we’re being real, it’s just orange.