Have you ever been experienced? We have (now).

And so it shall pass. The design review shall be finished and the two who were so excited and united in wonder shall drive home in a fog of finality. Nothing more to choose. All decisions are made. The young couple shall now wonder for up to five months if the color they picked from a tiny strip of paper the size of a pinky finger will really look good on a wall the size of 20 midgets. Not that there’s anything wrong with midgets. I could have written widgets and taken you on an economics ride instead of to the carnival. You see the state of anxiety we’re in? I am second guessing and explaining everything in too much detail with the potential to offend. I love the carnival, don’t get me wrong.

But do I love my new wall color? I don’t know. We don’t know. Why bring midgets into it all? I am unstructured. Why can't my head make me see what will be? All things will come to pass and that means our wall color will, too. Until then, I will be a ball of anxiety and wonder if we did the right thing. My biggest fear is walking into our carefully planned house and finding out that it's true--you cannot plan a 12x12 foot room based on a color the size of your thumbnail. Everything will look like a big bruise and we'll scramble to entice my mother to come visit so she can repaint the whole house.

We picked our faucets and had the girl take a nice blurry photo of us in front of our new master bath fixtures. So here we are being all blurry and mock washing our hands with our stainless steel faucets. Perhaps it is the excitement of the phony water and our finally being done with it all that makes the photo blurry. Perhaps we are moving so quickly in our pretend washing ritual that we cannot be captured in truth. No, we are just blurry. These are our master bath fixtures, but you cannot really see them. Now is the time for imagination minus blurry.

We know that the colors we picked are fun. Let fun dominate every decision and we’ll have an eclectic house where the neighbors judge us with one foot in the door. Bring it.

Mr. Husband was confident when he pointed to “Showstopper Red” from the Sherwin Williams paint strips. That’s the color. That one. Yes. Not “Antique Red” or “True Red,” but the “Showstopper Red” that makes me want to sing cabaret upon entering the room and exit with jazz hands shaking about with my face to the audience. Perfect. I think Mr. Husband did this on purpose. The red room is to be our sanctuary. It is our library. The ceilings and walls are painted red. A showstopping red box within which we will put our books, our great big desks with computers, and our time. (And our love.) The red room will make us burst into song with its very being. Mr. Husband is a fan of my songs. I am forever on Broadway in my head, and now he’s built me the perfect room for my adoring fans. My books will be happy. I will thank them many times over for my shelf of Oscars.

The showstopper red library has a door that leads out onto our upper porch where two fans will bathe us in air that we wish were cooler as we rock in our red rocking chairs. And drink margaritas to watch the sun dip beneath the house across the street. Let it all be bold. Bold as love. We’ll be the third house from the sun. Trumpets and violins. This is the place where we have built our bookish vision. Our home will be in this room.

We picked faucets. We picked lighting fixtures. We picked two other colors to paint the walls in the rest of the house: Svelte Sage and Harmonic Tan. So the green is sexy and the brown is calm with inspirations of Bob Dylan (if you try hard enough). We picked appliances (no upgrade). We picked marble for around the fireplace. We picked knobs—the most uninspiring put-a-fork-in-my-eye-knobs you ever saw. We picked a Kohler pedestal sink for the “powder room.” We picked blinds. We did it. Blinds. Let us close our windows to the world for a while. We picked and we picked and we picked until we were tired of picking. Just give us the bill.

We picked a gooseneck kitchen faucet that was really important to my giant Mr. Husband. We picked mirrors for the master bath. We picked our way home and were satisfied with this incredible house we are building. This week, we have windows and doors. This week we are overwhelmed. This week we wonder what it will be like not to see each other out of the corner of our eye at all times. I can hear him clicking behind me as he makes new creatures with the newly released Spore Creature Creator.

I hope I can always hear him. I learned today that my Mr. Husband has great ideas about our life to come. I learned today that I am so on board with all those ideas. I learned today that we are ready. Bring on the red library. Bring on the future. Bring it.