Sunshine on a stem

Key West is full of ixoras -- pretty much non-stop bloomers with hundreds of tiny red flowers on blossom heads. But when we were looking around town for plants to talk about with Craig, our landscape architect, we were surprised to find that this beauty on Fleming Street was an ixora, too: an aureum.

When he gave us its botanical name, I said, Yes -- gold. Aureum indeed, standing there today in a mild breeze and high-80s sunshine. (Heck, it's 80 at 10 p.m., under a full moon as big as the tropical night as I write this.)

I took a closer look at it and saw . . . our walls, on petals instead of wood.

Roy had been wrestling with his old, second-hand sprayer, and then buying a new one, to put a light coat of satin polyurethane on our paint-wiped walls and stained ceilings today.

Look at the sheen on the near wall he'd just sprayed in this picture, and compare it to the blotchy hit-or-miss reflectivity of the raw wiped paint on the far section. That little touch of poly compensates wonderfully for the differing absorbencies of sapwood and heartwood, and it's everything I'd hoped for.

And the ceiling: Well, it's starting to look like big, sweet strips of caramel -- warm, just glossy enough and oh, so tasty.