According to the Kinsey Report . . .

Every average man you know will tell you paint and stain dry much more quickly when the thermometer goes way up. At least, I know that paint does and suspect the same of wood stain (at least the one we've been using because it's dried fairly quickly in normal temperatures and our wood is porous). So this recent heat wave really threw a damper into my plans to have my way with our dining room window this last weekend. I was going to complete painting and staining of the trim, and given the non-existent state of my motivation for this project over the past several months, I was excited and energized because I was expecting to make great strides with a little extra time off work.

Here at chez flyskim, we've been restoring the many-times painted woodwork in our 1908 bungalow. We started in the dining room in January and have completed the built-in (above in its in-progress state), the large doorway into the office (the glorious "before" shot on top and the "after" is the bottom) . . .

. . . and the French doors (below), which are currently waiting for glass.

My original plan was take two days off and use my long weekend to paint and stain the window frame and the doorway into the kitchen. If I was feeling ambitious, I was also going to start on the crown moulding. Well, that didn't happen.

On Thursday, I got the primer on the window, but that needed eight hours to dry, so I didn't get to start painting until late that afternoon. Then I realized that my mad cutting in skillz (Please note the sarcasm. No one my age should ever use the phrase "mad skillz" without it.) were neither as mad nor as skillful as I remembered, and I taped off the windows and to-be-stained wood pretty quickly after my first mistake. But I ran out of tape, so I could only do a single coat of paint on two sections of the window. For reference, above is a picture of our window when we had just moved into the house: all white and bland and stripped of character.

And here's what it looks like with all of the windows down and most of the moulding taken off. Please also enjoy in this shot the beauteous Pip in the right-hand window taking in some fresh evening air.

I ran to the store for more tape Friday morning and completed my second coat of paint on all sections of the window between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. The painted part of the frame is the trim that would be on the outside of the house if not for the storm windows. When we put our original windows back in, the stained wood will be on the inside of the house and the painted wood on the outside. The color is called Night Shade, and it's dark brown with just a hint of purple. It will look fantastic when we finally get around to painting our house pale green. But since we had the windows down for repair and staining, I figured why not go ahead and paint. There will never be a better time. It was in the mid-80s on Friday which is when I noticed that the two coats of paint put on the third section of window that morning dried awfully fast. Knowing that our house holds onto heat and that it was only going to get hotter over the weekend, I decided not to risk the staining. There's nothing worse than gloppy, uneven stain, and I'm not skilled enough at it to try staining under less than ideal conditions. It's supposed to drop to the low 80s sometime in the next 10 days, and I'll give it another try then.

And just to illustrate the current unhappiness in our household over the 100+ temperatures, here is a shot of our little man coping with the heat the best he can. The floor of our house has become dangerous territory over the past couple of days. You never know when you'll encounter a random kitty belly. Okay, running through the sprinkler now.