Current Status: Sitting here with wet hair, smelling stain fumes pumping through the pipes in my house, and seriously craving some ice cream: Vanilla Peanut Butter Crunch with Chocolate Fudge, please.

I’m working overtime just trying to finish up this office project. I had hoped to be done by now but I was derailed for several days last week while I limped around in pain from an arthritic condition – no, you did not read that wrong – that comes and goes when it pleases. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a flare up. This made it impossible to paint or stain in the room, so I turned to work on the doors, which I could do standing up.

I love painting.

I enjoy staining.

Polyurethaning isn’t bad either.

It’s the sanding I loathe. LOATHE. The dust is annoying but the physical act of pushing around all that sandpaper to scuff up the surface is just downright annoying. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if all the surfaces I was scuffing were flat. But they’re not. Not even close, what with all this curvy, intricate woodwork and all.

At this point, I’d only managed to scuff half the doors and I haven’t even gotten to the actual room itself and I’m ready to throw in the towel. I spent over 7 hours yesterday painstakingly staining most of the room which made me seriously second guess my estimate that I’d be done with the finishing portion of this project by this week. This is definitely taking longer than the bedroom did.

By the way, the paint color is Benjamin Moore’s Aura in “Hollingsworth Green.” Or should I say, the walls are that color. The ceiling (including the slanted portion) as well as the closet are all “Hollingsworth Green: 50% reduced.” Yes, those ceilings are not white, although they probably look it in these pictures and they definitely look it in real life. I’m a big fan of using a tinted version of the wall color on the ceiling so the wall and ceiling colors jive; I don’t like stark white, completely contrasted ceilings because there isn’t a sense of cohesion between the two.

[An aside: I love Aura paint. Two coats for the ceiling and one coat for the walls. Yes, over spackled sheetrock. And yes, it's not patchy. And no, I did not cake it on. I found the same to be true in our bedroom. While a gallon of it costs more than its cheap competitors, not having to prime over spackled or painted walls saves me time and money. Yay Aura!]

But there’s always this little sense of panic that overcomes me the moment I open up the ceiling color paint can and see that it seems more green, blue, whatever than I seem to think it should be. And then I paint it on and it stands out from the spackle – with a lot of Aura shades, there’s no need to prime – and I start to worry…until the wall color is applied and the painter’s tape comes off and it all just looks lovely, as intended.

Left to do: finish staining the room (almost done), then two coats of poly with sanding in between (grrr) and finish poly/sanding the doors. Oh, and a side project. I have to do over the top of my desk (it comes in 4 pieces). And then,…. and then my head explodes!

S.O.S. Send ice cream. And several quick assistants.

Tags: Aura paint, Benjamin Moore, craft room, office, polyurethane, remodel, remodeling, sanding, stain