Making Our Home Our Own: The Staircase Makeover

I don't know if it is new homeowner zeal or renting our home for so many years and not being able to make the updates we wanted, but ever since we signed the papers on this house we have been in non stop home improvement mode. We have painted the baseboards, walls, kitchen ( I'll post pics once the new counter tops are in)stools,stair case and a coffee table all with in a month. It sucked. But, the results were well worth the late nights, and painting mishaps.

I never liked the staircase in this house, boring and unfinished looking with it's sawed off top. I new that if I ever owned this home I would paint the rails and add a topper.

 So I got to work while Jon was spraying cabinets in the garage. Painting a 4 sided rail when you can only see 3 sides at a time is annoying. You can't see the back side so you have no idea that paint is dripping down that side until you go around to paint it and you discover a half dried drip. It took 1 coat of primer and 5 and on some rails 6 coats of paint. It took me 2 hours each coat. And that doesn't even count the hours I spend taping...Chore!

I was excited cause after hours of taping, the first coat of primer felt like real progress. I was so naive...little did I know I was going to be sitting on the ground for at least 11 more hours.

4.99....worth a try

We ordered a pair of newel caps from Home Depot's web site, and was so disappointed when they arrived because they were too big. These posts are an unusual size( 3x3). So I had to improvise.While I was at Home Depot returning my failed attempt at a topper, I picked up a finial in the decking department and thought, well this is better than nothing. I was later at Hobby lobby returning another failed purchase and decided to look at their wood working stuff...and found decorative wood squares for 2.99$ for a 4 pack. I came home and tried to imagine it...and I thought together they just might work. Jon picked up some trim from the home depot to make it look like it was all one piece and it worked...for a lot less $ than pre-made newel caps.

decorative wood from hobby lobby and finial...not too shabby.

Here you can see before trim and after. Placing a piece directly under the flat decorative wood and another a few inches below made a huge difference in making it look custom. Go Jon!

Here is the finished product. Much brighter and just plain prettier to look at.

The sun was shining right on that ball...it's not really glowing white like that :)

 Jon also painted an old coffee table for me, looks brand new. It's fun watching my house become more of what I want it to be. I'll keep you posted on our progress!