Our story so far: After much equivocation, my husband and I chose an alternative stain color to the Golden Oak we first stained the sanctuary floor in the old Methodist church we were turning into a home.

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And then Tyler and I spent ninety minutes on a Saturday afternoon applying Acorn Brown to the sanctuary floor. Unlike stain alone or polyurethane alone, this stain + poly was a two-person job. Tyler smeared on the stain with a lamb’s wool mop, and I followed behind him with a synthetic deck paint pad making sure it was evenly applied (and sometimes I just held the dripping lamb’s wool mop over the bucket while he used the paint pad—because he was not interested in doing this a third time). The stain-poly was a little tricky to work with because unlike clear polyurethane, you see exactly where you got sloppy. If you miss a spot or drip it, you will see it.

But we turned on an eclectic mix of ‘80s pop and classic rock music, embraced the sweat and used only two gallons of Acorn Brown on the floor. It was dark. But brown. Not golden. Not red. And thank goodness, not orange.

I thought we were done (finally!), and I planned to relax the next day—a Sunday. We had just finished using a product that described itself as 1-Step, after all.

As usual, Tyler got up before me and inspected our work in the quiet morning with sunlight pouring into the windows. I stayed in bed, thinking about how good my first cup of coffee would taste.

He returned to the bedroom and announced that we would have to apply another coat. Right. Now.

I tried to talk him out of it. The rest of the world was going to church or sleeping off a hangover or reading the Sunday paper, and I wanted to join the rest of the world in a typical Sunday morning activity. But after pouring the first cup of coffee, inspecting the floor myself and consulting the fine print which clearly stated two coats might be required (1-Step, ha!), I agreed. Our showplace wood floor needed another careful coat.

So Tyler turned up the music again (jazz this time), and we commenced getting sweaty. I never got breakfast—only coffee so I was extra grumpy when we finished. But we were really and truly finished. It looked pretty good.

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Tomorrow: When out from the church there arose such a clatter! Read about it here.