I spent some time today smoothing the walls of the study. Quite a bit of time was spent smoothing with a wet sponge, a bit of time sanding, and another round of drywall mud. Hopefully this is the last round and a bit of smoothing is all that is left.

I also removed the window seat platform and cut it down to be shallower than the shallow side of the slab. I taped all the shims to the floor before I unfastened the platform, and took it to the basement. I tacked on a couple of strips of wood and ripped the front off using the table saw. I had to flip it over to cut from both sides but still it only took perhaps an hour all told to cut it down and rebuild it. Reiinstalling it proved surprisingly easy. Sometimes you get lucky on some part of a project.

This afternoon Teresa and I went and looked at paint samples. We had been looking at them for a while, but really hadn’t found anything we thought was quite right. The folks at Schnarr’s were quite helpful as we picked a couple of colors we like. We brought home sample pints of paint and this evening I painted squares of each color in a couple of different spots. One is a light but warm green, the other more of a light sand color. Both looked good shortly after applying them. We’ll have to see how they look in daylight.

paint samples on the west wall

Funny how the type of light can change the look of things considerably. Consider the photo above which is lit by LED puck lights. The one below by a couple of CFL bulbs in a frosted fixture in the ceiling. Both walls are pretty much the exact same shade of white, for reference.

paint samples on the north wall

I also found time to complete the second and final round of staining. The parts probably don’t look different in the photo compared to the last photo. The second round adds some depth and subtle shadings to the wood tone that don’t seem to show up in photos.

cabinet parts completely stained

Just for comparison, here’s a shot after the first round of staining. You might notice the photo above has slightly more reddish/orangish tones.

cabinet parts completely stained

Next is applying finish to the cabinet parts.