Stairs

So I am finally feeling good about the stairs. I sanded the stairs, put wood putty in the million nail holes(all the brown dots in the left pic), finished painting all the risers and primed all the steps. I will wait to paint the steps until we are finished removing the plaster from the wall. I still need to get some quarter round trim to cover up all the nooks and crannies but I will wait until we remove the wall and buy a miter saw. Maybe I can convince Lee to help me remove the wall tomorrow, on his only day off this week:) Doubt it.

Oh I forgot to tell you about this little gem we found under the carpet!

Cannot decide if its cool or not?

Yes, that is linoleum tile with leaves on it!

The Stairs are going down!

I am so sick of the stars and their NEVER ending issues. I had a mini meltdown today over them and I even threw a piece of wood across the room at one point cause I was so mad. It was only a tiny piece, but hey I had a temper tantrum! Anyway, I was building a frame today for the vents that go under the last step and every thing I touched, used, drilled, etc would fall a part, split into or I would accidently knock down. Enter temper tantrum. I walked away for a few moments, collected myself and said, this is not going to beat ME!!!! After that, I got it done. It looks like poo because the floor slants which caused my frame to slant which caused the vent to slant, BUT I got it done...whew. AND on top of that fiasco, I sanded the edge of each step yesterday, cleaned them, and kilz'd(fancy name for Primed them:) them and when I woke up this morning it looked like poo too. The white primer made every nook, cranny, defect, missed sanded spot stand out even more than before with the fake wood paint job. I almost feel like knocking the entire stair case down and starting from scratch. SO here is what I have or have not accomplished in the past two days.

These are the vents I added with the frame that I hate. Notice downward slant of the right vent...makes me soooo mad!

This is the giant mess I made in my fury.

nooks & crannies...forgot to take a picture of the painted stairs, do that tomorrow

Curio Cabinet

I bought a cabinet at Goodwill a month ago with the intention of painting it. Well when I got it here I for some reason felt bad for it and could not bring myself to paint it. So finally Lee said it is ugly and needs a new life with some paint. So I did it...and LOVE it. I cannot believe how well it turned out and how pretty it looks.

Happy Birthday Arthur!!!

Today is Arthur's 3rd Birthday. So in honor of him, here are some of my favorite pictures.

Family Photo

Stair help!

The stairs are killing me.... Last week I thought it would be best to strip the paint on the steps to expose the wood. Well, I stripped three of them and it was a disaster. The wood underneath is untreated pine and is now stained cherry red because of three colors I tried to remove. I should have bought stronger remover but I was scared to because I was working inside with no cross ventilation and Arthur was there. And with further inspection today, the wood on the risers is beat up, with tons of holes from nails and staples and looks awful, even if I were to patch them and paint. Now I have decided painting them and laying a runner will be the easiest and best looking solution. I have been researching runners online and have found a few options. I really love the look of white stairs with a light colored runner on top like these:

do not like the border on the right one

Ideally I would want a runner with some gray in it, to bring out the gray banister. I am not a huge fan of sisal because it hurts but I think I could find a softer one like jute. Anyway, thoughts on this? I feel like I have ideas of what I want but when I start doing the projects I am having to choose different options to cover the mistakes from the past.

I like this platinum runner but it is only 7' long, I need at least 18' and it is 2.5' wide, I need only 1.5'.

Finished the stairs

I finished painting the stair rail, etc. today. I cannot believe it took me so long but painting between each baluster was time consuming. I think it looks great and I am excited to finish the stairs. Tomorrow I will try to strip the steps of the 5 layers of paint and then paint them with varnish or what ever shiny stuff you use on wood. After that is done, I will paint the risers the living room color. I know I posted almost the same picture twice but one was to show off the color I painted and one was to show the pictures I hung under the stairs. Which I am thinking I need to lower the one on the right, it looks strange.

Yesterday, I took a break from painting to give Arthur a bath and while he was drying we was being really funny with his towel. He loves to go "crazy" after his bath, I think it's his way of rebelling after such a traumatic event:)

I love this one, his nose looks huge!