Shut the door, will ya?

My eyes are red and watery; I've been sneezing a lot and feeling light-headed and dizzy - ever since mom decided to paint the guest room and expose the whole family to paint fumes.

She got a surge of inspiration after watching a show on HGTV and decided to rehaul the guest room. For two whole days, she stripped the room, prepped it, slapped primer on the walls and painted until 3 a.m., all with the windows tightly shut.

The result: A loud, hideous, unsightly, nauseous shade of yellow called Del sol by Glidden.

Think mango lassi with yellow food coloring in it. Or something I'm an expert on: concentrated urine.

In fact, the only positive thing I can say about the room is that I never ever have to go in there.

Mom, the eternal optimist, views the whole fiasco as a learning experience. She'll stay away from yellow walls, hereafter. Her next ambitious project is to paint the master bedroom a royal red.

I have a feeling she's going to exhaust all the colors of the rainbow to arrive at the conclusion that builder's white is right, after all.