*Sigh* The stairs.....NOT my favorite part of this house. Stairways are important to me. They make the entrance, in my opinion. The entry already needs a huge dose of TLC, and this stairway doesn't help at all. The last 2 homes we've owned, we fell in love with because of the grandness of the stairs. (I so wanted to share a pic, but they're not on this comp. I'll have to locate some.) In fact, when we first moved to Cali 11 years ago, we knew it was the right house as soon as we walked in the front door and saw the stairs. I'm afraid that if I had actually SEEN the house before we moved in, I would have said "No way!"
Yep....we love great stairs.
A picture is worth a thousand words, right? This is our front walk and view from our porch. Kinda brown and dreary because these were taken in December, but it's what I've got to work with at the moment. lol
We really have a great yard. I can't wait to share non-Winter pics with you!
Not sure why I don't have a pic looking AT the front porch and door, but here's the FIRST thing you see when you walk in the house.
Kind of anti-climactic, huh? NOT in love with the stairs, unfortunately. Not even my cute little "NOEL" on the ledge or the....ummm....oddly placed mirror, can liven up the brown and dreary stairway. Brown tile, brown banisters, brown/gray paint....FLAT paint, at that! Let's just say flat paint, children, and stair wall are not a good combination. I actually already painted this wall yellow, but I don't like it. It's going to get repainted. And HOW did I not include the awesomely outdated brass and glass chandelier in this pic?!?! It's in a class of its own.
I mentioned the other day that the railing is pretty much about to fall over. See that white piece of fabric on the right? It's laying over a board, that's leaned agains the rail, where 2 of the balusters are missing because they BROKE within about 2 weeks of moving in. The fabric actually keeps the board from falling over and chipping away the bull-nose corner on the opposite wall. Yah....that happened a few times.
Anywho....we're going to replace those skinny newel posts with something beefy enough to withstand my 6 crazy active boys, and build an entirely new set-up. In true Reduce, Reuse, Recycle/DIY-style, allllll those balusters and newel posts will be repurposed into something. I already have big plans for those. This is actually the next big project on the list because we're putting in new laminate flooring late Spring or early Summer and this has to be done first. I REALLY want hand-scraped wood, but the laminate will have to do for now. (But that's another post, entirely.)
On the stair wall, we're sputting up wainscoting. I soooooo wanted to do the oh-so-popular, architecturally stunning board and batten, but after patching a couple of 9-year-old boot-sized holes in the hall walls, we decided that wainscoting will give the super high traffic areas some much-needed sturdiness. Function before fashion....Priorities! The main areas of the main floor, the hallway, and the stairway will all have wainscoting. I have some B&B planned for other places in the house because I lurve it and HAVE to have it somewhere!
Ahhhh.....I found the pic looking toward the front door. :) You can see all the fingerprints on the wall on the left. Those don't wash off of flat paint. This pic is over a year old and it's just.gotten.worse.....Ick! I didn't paint it, because that part of the wall will be covered in wainscoting.
Yep.....it really did look like this when we moved in. It's like they were painting, realized they were defaulting on the house, and then just put everything away and left it the way it was. That big white oval is a REALLY bad patch job......covered by a splotchy coat of white, high-gloss paint. A lot of the time, there are no words, just head shaking. This is one of them. lol
Stairs TO DO:
o Large newel posts
o Square balusters
o Larger top rail
o Wainscoting
o Handrail
o Picture gallery
o Knock out doors at bottom of stairs
o Gradually widen stairway at bottom and knock out bottom right wall
o New lighting
o Paint and re-install handrail
· Stairs DONE:
o Repair and paint walls
o Remove carpet from trim
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