Staircase Makeover
Although I have wanted to make-over our staircase since the moment we bought our house, I did not know that I would be writing this blog post until Wednesday of last week. Everything fell into place quickly and I am so happy that it did. Just wait until you see the final result!
This is a picture of the staircase from last week. After we took possession of the house we removed an old, pink carpet runner from the staircase, but otherwise this is the OG style of our home. Pros- study, solid wood. Cons- a little slippery, orange.
The OG staircase
When we bought the house the flooring throughout was either carpet or linoleum. We installed new carpet upstairs and engineered hardwood in the living spaces downstairs before we moved in which helped us avoid the inconvenience of living through the installation of new floors once we and our furniture were settled in the home. Following the flooring updates our stairs looks out of place more than ever and in hind sight I regret not tackling the staircase at the same.
Hgtv.ca
My vision was to update the stairs, similar to this photo (hgtv.ca). I pictured the majority of the stairs painted out in a warm white (same as our trim- Benjamin Moore’s Cloud White) with stained treads and new wood handrail and new, square, painted newel post and a stylish, neutral, carpet runner. We decided to wait on making this change to the home, but as it turns out (and I think we could have foreseen this) construction on your staircase, especially stripping and sanding and re-staining the existing wood treads while I worked from home and while we required access to our bathtub and kids’ bedrooms every evening starting at 6:30pm can be very inconvenient. For this reason it has taken me almost three years to consider tackling this project but with some compromise on the vision we managed with minimal inconvenience!
with updates to the adjacent kitchen and living room the entryway was looking gloomier than ever and I started to consider what we could tackle in the entryway update and it was very obvious what the elephant in the room was… the very orange elephant. I decided to keep the railing as is to avoid further delays and to lower costs of the makeover. I called a local painter to provide me a quote to paint and stain the existing staircase and he said he could come the next day (Tuesday) to look at it. As we reviewed the effort it would take to re-stain the wood treads (his time and also the inconvenience of drying stain and urethane) I was, again, feeling the urge to push the work to the future, but then he said his latest job was completed early and he could come paint the stairs for us, starting Thursday. He told me that if we kept the scope to just painting the stairs (no stain) then it would take 2 days and we should be able to walk on it each night in sock feet, no issues. If we wanted to include staining the stairs that would be significantly more time and his next availability for that amount of work would be this fall. New stairs by the end of week!? I was convinced- paint all the way!
Staircase Design Board- Julia DeDecker Interiors
I decided to paint the stairs with two different colours- Cloud White, as planned for the majority of the stairs, but for the treads and the handrail I wanted some contrast in colour. I knew I would be choosing a runner for the stairs and introducing colour in my future stages of the work in the entryway so I chose a greige that would provide contrast to the white, while keeping the update neutral and keeping in a colour pallet consistent with the rest of the house. To complete the work with two separate colours ended up adding an additional half day of effort to the painters original quote but he was still able to start right away.
I love how they turned out, see the before and afters below, including a view of the stairs from my living room couch. It makes a world of difference in our home.
Part of me is sad I do not have the warmth of the stained wood treads, but I know that warmth can be achieved with the correct runner and future design decisions in this space. Sometimes, when designing your home you need to balance the wish list with, not only your budget, but your tolerance for inconvenience. For me and my family- paint was the correct way to go and I am so happy we went this route.
