For the small south-facing parlor where the family gathers after supper, for the bedroom of a six-year-old who has just begun first grade, for the kitchen breakfast nook where the morning sun comes through the curtains at a quarter past eight. A warm pale cream with the soft yellow of fresh-churned country buttermilk poured into a white china pitcher. Reads honestly in lamp-light and in afternoon sun alike. Pairs steadily with cream trim, with milk-glass collections, with the warm browns of oak floorboards. A patient and forgiving color for a home that is being lived in carefully.
Don and I painted the parlor the second weekend of May. Two quarts of Buttermilk Morning semi-gloss from Brockman's, Don rolled the walls and I cut in the trim on Saturday afternoon while Wesley played in the yard with the Bagley girls next door. We were finished by Sunday at 4pm.
The south wall reads exactly the way I hoped it would in the afternoon light — Mrs. Bagshaw was right about what buttermilk does to a morning. I have kept this chip card in the front of my bookkeeping ledger at Dr. Whitsitt's office for six months and I look at it sometimes between accounts.
I am writing this slip in October to tuck into the card because the parlor turned out and somebody who picks a chip card from a hardware-store rack deserves to know that sometimes the color is the right one.
— Caroline Sneed, 818 Wedgewood Drive,