It is very hard to believe that all of that, turns out to be merely prelude.

The color was on the walls and I was looking forward to starting to work with the shiny white enamel. My friend drops in. We have know each other a long time. Our children are a married couple. We are co-in-laws and I regret that our language has no real label for our relationship. On this day she is here to drop off presents for the baby shower for our first grandchild together. She lives very far away and travels a great deal. She will not be able to attend the shower in few weeks. But she says, she has had a desire and wants to talk it over to me. She and her husband have a pied-a-terre in a near by town. They are in our area now, every couple months. She has used her amazing shopping skills to decorate their little place, then went on to help her daughter-in-law decorate her place. Now she would like to use her skills and her amazing find of the mother lode of quality consignment furniture to give me a couch.

She said couch, singular, one couch. She agrees that was what she said. Little did I know.

That day I got out the accent color and painted the decorative panels on the stairs and did the cutting in on the stair wall.

The next day my friend came over and helped me paint the enamels. It was a lovely long busy day. I enjoyed her company very much and we got the enamel work in the entire room finished while chatting merrily about our kids and how much fun it will be to have a grand child and solving all of the other problems of the world.

The following day, we went shopping.