I reached an impasse on my study project this evening, my last before Kara and Katherine return. The impasse is this: it is very, very clear from my experience applying the wall color to cut in the ceilings, windows, etc., that this paint will need two coats of paint. And it's not even close. Sometimes, you can just kinda lay it on thick, but not here. The pink is actually very light, and the claret very dark, and it's the light that shows through. It is almost impossible to lay it on to cover completely, and I'm not going to try. At some point, you can't settle speed for quality, and this is where I draw the line. Yeah, I painted over some door hardware, which I don't usually do. Yeah, I didn't fuss over holes and cracks as I sometimes do. I cut a lot of corners, but this one just comes down to time, and I ain't got it.

With the realization of this, I promptly decided to quit for the evening. At least I can have one evening to just relax a bit. There is no avoiding that painting is going to be a big enough effort that it won't kill me later to stop now.

Now, a progress. I skipped out of eark a bit earlier than I would like (around 5:30 or so), because I had a ton of work to do. I managed to paint all the trim, including cutting in floors and doors and all the rest. All I have to do now is put the wall color on and I'll be done. That's tomorrow nights project.

The choice of basic white for the trim is a source of contention between Kara and I. Although I didn't get a chance to tell her this on the phone, white has several distinct advantages. First, it avoids the crisis of painting the trim some color you don't like. That's a pretty bad spot to be in. Second, the wall color is dark (claret), and I think the trim will brighten it up a bit. Third, and this may be the most important, if I can't cover the pink in one coat, and some shows through, you will never know it in a room painted claret.

Well I had a pretty exhausting day today. With the exception of brunch with my dad, I worked well into the night. But I kept to my new (ammended) schedule. I got all the patches sanded, the room completely washed, mats down, and a primer coat on all the woodwork in the room. I gotta tell you, even the current very pink walls looked good with the trim white. Really good. So I'm pretty happy, because I can see it coming together already. I had a few spots I had to respackle, so I did that as well. Tomorrow evening, I'll put the real trim paint (also white) on, do some final, wet standing touch up on the last few patches, prime the spackled areas, and be ready for the walls by Tuesday evening.

This ones going to go down to the wire.