So much for the stain

With a few long strokes of the brush, Darren hit a milestone on Thursday: Apart from a few touches and trims, the ceiling stain is done, giving his and Roy's aching necks a break.

A thousand miles away, Robert is having some pains of his own, and I can understand them totally.

"Is it too yellow?," he asked this morning, looking at yesterday's picture from the top of the stairs.

It's definitely yellow, I told him -- but the effective shade depends a lot on the surroundings, the light levels and about a billion other variables of perception.

Here, for example, there's a rosy glow near the ceiling. The color is much clearer down low. Add art, draperies, furniture. . . .

But all that said, I'll be much happier when the clear poly glaze evens out the reflectivity and the whole thing can mellow a bit.

Not on the same level, of course, but there's the story about Lady Spencer, Diana's mother, who was asked about the brightness of some newly regilded furniture. "Give it a few hundred years," she's reported to have said. "It'll calm down."