Well, well, well.  Today is an excellent day.  You see, we’ve been working on the Snakeskin finish for a while now.  The finish has four layers and I thought it would take us 5 days to do it — one day per layer and a buffer day, just in case.  Yeah, well.  It has taken 5 days just to do the stencil layer.  Yes, you read that right: 5 days for the overall stencil layer.  It is a beautiful finish (we are all salivating for the final pics) but boy is it a doozy.  We’ve all agreed that we are never, ever doing this finish again…it is officially discontinued.  Not an accent wall, not a niche, not even a small table top.  Folks, you know I’m usually a positive person but what fun would a blog be if I didn’t share the misadventures?

Getting back to it being an excellent day.  Since we knew today was the last day we would be stencilling, the crew was in high spirits.  As my brother and I drove in to the site, we were happily debating the points as to who would win in hand-to-hand, face-to-face combat: a ninja or a samurai.  (I say ninja.)  As we worked, the team excitedly debated how we would dispose of the stencils: sacrificial bonfire, scissors or just slam dunking them into the trash can.  We ordered a gigantic margarita pizza for lunch.  And at the end?  We were too exhausted and hand-cramped to even muster up the

(My brother just walked by my laptop and read the post.  He’s like “Regina, you’ve got to emphasize the horror of the situation.  You didn’t even tell them we were sent stencils that didn’t match up. I don’t think you’re explaining it well enough.  What Saw is to Horror Movies, Snakeskin is to Faux.  That’s what you’ve got to get across.”) 

(Now, my friend Jeff Huckaby called me to talk about his day and his client’s ceiling.  Man, I feel for him.  I also told him about my day and he said “Well, if you were closer, I’d smack you in the head, LOL!  What were you thinking?”  It’s nice to know you can call someone and just vent and laugh about paint, you know?)

Where was I?  Oh, yes.  Well, at the end we were too tired to even entertain the idea of the celebrational bonfire or the cutting up of the stencils.  We just stood around in disbelief that the stencilling was actually done and tiredly patted each other on the backs.  I guess that even on the particularly stressful commissions, there is always something to be happy about - a joyful non-grumpy team, knowing you’re working with wonderful designers or just the thought that all that hard work is going to pay off into one heck of a show-stopping room.  Appreciation must always abound.

(…it’s still getting discontinued, though.)