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It's official: I now love my office.

The Beacon Hill drapes of living room fame finally have been paired a wall color that does them justice: Benjamin Moore's 2052-70 Ice Blue. In bossy color's world headquarters, the drapes are slightly edgy, not frumpy. They look tall and proud, not puffy and excessive. They're fresh, not sickly.


Benjamin Moore was kind enough to mention my office painting project on its Facebook page. But the first several comments were along the lines of, "Brrr! Too cold!" Not an enthusiastic response to the wall color initally.

But I'm thrilled to report that in real life, the room is anything but cold. Counterintuitive, perhaps, because, the wall color is called Ice Blue, and we all know that green is a cool color...

But it's a yellowish green. And the walls have just enough turquoise in them - not grey - to make them just a teeny tiny bit tropical. And the floor is glowing orange heart of pine; very warm. AND the room faces south and gets so much sun that I sometimes had to wear sunglasses inside before the shades were installed. So, cold it is not.


The wall color was a bit of an experiment (better to goof around in my own house than in my clients'), but the delightful surprise is that it's kind of invigorating. I feel focused in this room.

A bluish grey - like that in my bedroom, Benjamin Moore's 1646 Lookout Point - would have been cooler, and more serene. Lovely for my bedroom, but not the effect I wanted in my office.


A side note to this project is that I used Benjamin Moore's Aura paint, as I did with my my daughters' bedroom in the spring...but as I mentioned earlier, this time I experienced an odd technical difficulty. As the day wore on, the roller seemed to pick up little "crumbs" of paint (for lack of a better word), and by the end, I had to smudge them off with my fingers as I went. It was really annoying.


But this didn't happen to me in the spring, so what gives?

Benjamin Moore's Jim Rayball was on the case immediately and invited me to tell him more about the problem so he could weigh in thoroughly and thoughtfully. But surprise surprise, I got sidetracked by my super fun client projects (that's not ironic; they ARE fun) and didn't get back to him.

I did, however, remember to ask my best painter about this when I saw him at a job site.

The bottom line: I was too slow.

Aura paint dries so fast that you need to move quickly and methodically so you don't roll over areas you just painted. In the spring, by myself, I was a madwoman: I had 2 days, and by God that room was going to be DONE.

But in my office, I had help in the form of my father and brother...we were a lot more leisurely. I'd pick up where someone left off...we'd take a little break...where did you finish, again? I'm just going to re-roll this right now...

To get the full benefit of Aura paint, my painter tells me, your technique has to be good. This doesn't mean that us mere mortals can't use it, it just means we should practice. Work quickly, get the right amount of paint on the roller, don't re-paint wet spots, let it dry completely before putting on another coat - if you even need another coat.

I'd been skeptical about that one-coat claim, but in my office, it held true. Ah, wait - I did lose my nerve and slap a primer coat on the grey wall, but everything else was one coat. And we used a single gallon for the whole room.

My painter says that only drawback to Aura paint is the price. But he said that if you're willing to pay a little extra, in his opinion it's the best paint out there. And he has no reason to fib.


As for my office's rapid decline into messiness, what can I say. I work in here.

My mind is tidy, I assure you.