Steve mistakenly gave me a cookie…and you know what happens when you give a mouse a cookie.
You see, Steve agreed it was time to rid ourselves of more mauve carpet upstairs (it’s a process to get rid of that stuff). But it only made sense that if we were going to be replacing carpet, we might as well take advantage of the process and also paint the staircase. We have company coming into town next week and we both floated the idea of having every thing done by the time visitors showed up and although we had a deadline not a whole lot was getting done (because in reality we were both okay waiting until a less stressful time to make the updates). Last Wednesday, Steve and I were talking and his words were simple. “If we’re going to do this – then we need to start working and make that the priority right now.” He said jump and I jumped. I just needed a good little nudge to get me started, but once I’ve started, you can’t stop me.
Let me remind you of what the staircase looked like when we moved in.
The orange dated oak was not working with our decor and so we said goodbye.
I spent hours taping off the staircase. Hours. I did research online and most said spraying a staircase was never worth it because of all the taping. But we have 140 spindles. There was no way I was painting those by hand. So I taped. Steve taped. And we taped some more. We essentially had to create a tent around the staircase to protect everything. But let me tell you, it was worth it. I sprayed 5 coats in no time and within 24 hours we were tearing the tent down. I used two coats of a good primer and three coats of Benjamin Moore Advance paint (really expensive paint – but I was really impressed with its coverage and leveling properties, check it out).
It makes a world of difference to have the staircase white. It’s clean and fresh and I can’t stop looking at it and smiling. Sometimes I wonder why I wait so long to make an update when it completely transforms the space. Carpet goes in tomorrow morning and it might as well be Christmas morning. Stay tuned…
Oh my goodness – that is awesome!!
Thanks!
Looks GREAT! I'm so impressed.
Thanks – this was one of those projects the several hours in I wondered what I had gotten myself into!
Nicely done. I like it. That is a big staircase!
I love in the original picture how they brought the carpet up from the sunken living room and a foot into each space on all sides. Can't beat that!
We called that the carpet burm…it made for a nice racetrack for the boys cars. I hear it's coming back in style in case you're interested! 🙂
Great staircase…..huge undertaking. Nicely done! Did you do any sanding first or did the primer adhere without it?
It was a huge undertaking! I didn't sand it first. Our spindles were intricate and it would have made sanding nearly impossible. I used a really high quality paint from Benjamin Moore which carried the properties of oil based paint even though it was water based, making the paint stick a little better. We haven't had any problems yet with paint coming off. If you're spindles are easy to sand I would take that step because it will give you a better adhesion.