August 2020 | Page 72

Change of Scene There’s no fresher start than white paint. When Emily Blanchard and her fiance ended their engagement and put their house on the market, Blanchard searched for an apartment that could accommodate her pitbull rescue, Opal. She rented the first dog-friendly place she found: a two-bedroom, two-level space over a garage in West Warwick. At the time, it was painted a dreary shade of gray and had scant furniture — just a chair and a gaming console belonging to the outgoing tenant, a man in his twenties. “It looked dreadful, but I could see there was potential,” Blanchard, thirty, says. With her landlord’s permission, she got out her paintbrush and began the transformation, one stroke of Sherwin Williams “Snowbound” at a time. PHOTOS COURTESY OF EMILY BLANCHARD