Foyer and staircase

We’re slowly making our way through the interior of the house and painting every room that is gold. The colour is in almost every room, and we can hardly stand it anymore. A few months ago we painted our family room and my goodness it felt good. We used Benjamin Moore’s Hazy Skies and Clarksville Grey. It looks pretty good, but Hazy Skies is much more grey in this room than downstairs in the suite, where we used it first and fell in love with it. I like it, but Ty’s not sold on the grey look just yet. We’re thinking the accent wall isn’t quite right, so we plan to paint it some other colour at a later date. For now, it’s fine.

Over the holidays we’ve been working on the foyer and the staircase. Painting the entrance area also meant painting beside the stairs and into the hallway upstairs, as the walls are all connected. We decided to go with a bold accent wall on the left, and four shades lighter on the right wall and ceiling. There is horizontal moulding on the walls beside the stairs, and we decided to paint the walls above that moulding a neutral shade, called Elephant Tusk. It looks fabulous so far.

Here’s what the foyer and stairs looked like before we painted.

There was no way we would be able to live with the new wall colour and the dilapidated brown and gold stairs. This is what they looked like before we began demolition.

We’re pretty sure they are the original stairs. They don’t appear to have been built well (many gaps, and a lot of nails, some in unusual spots), although it could also be that they weren’t maintained. And they are somewhere’s around a hundred years old, so it’s not surprising they are in such disrepair. Some of the treads were broken, and the landings are uneven and have breaking boards. We considered simply putting carpet over them, but after doing some research, we decided it wasn’t a very good option. So our Christmas present ended up being 15 engineered oak stair treads at the contractor’s rate of $35.95 each. And lots of sweat equity. (Hopefully.)

The newel posts are gouged and scratched and look terrible. They were painted brown, white, orange and then gold. The orange paint must have been oil-based, because over the past year the orange has “seeped” through the gold. You can see it at the top in this photo.

I stripped the paint from the bottom of the banister and started on the bottom newel post. I’m sanding the risers as they aren’t too bad and don’t have as many layers of paint. We’re also going to paint them the same colour as all the trim and moulding in the house (Swiss Coffee), so it’s not as prudent to strip them.

Our staircase design is to also paint the uprights with Swiss Coffee. The newel posts, handrail, and the bottom of the banister (the part I’m stripping) will be stained a dark brown. This is what they look like right now. Lots of work still to do, but oh boy they are gonna look fabulous when they’re done.

Filed under foyer, painting, renovations, staircase | Comments Off