Before and After of our Lake House Stairs and Landing

We recently finished the final touches on the renovation of our lake house stairs, so I wanted to share with you the dramatic before and afters!!

For those who had not heard the back story of the Fixer Upper we bought - here is a photo and a link to the original post about our fixer upper.

http://cornerofplaidandpaisley.blogspot.com/2017/02/ugly-house-gets-makeover.html

As you can imagine, a house that was this ugly on the outside- wasn't too pretty on the inside! Here are some before photos of the stairs/landing area. It is pretty small, so I am not even sure if I can call it a foyer.

I was not kidding!  This house was kind of an early 70's disaster.

Don't ya just love the fire extinguisher as an accent to the green carpet?! And we never could figure out way the railing only went half way down the steps!! Plus the railing across the top along the hall way was so low - it only came up to my thigh.  So I figured anything we put in would be better than what was there.

One of the very first things we did was to rip off the carpet on these steps to see what we were dealing with underneath.  

Which ended up being - not much!  Just cheep wood steps that were not of the quality that you could finish them as nice hardwood steps. You can also see how dark it was in this little foyer/stair well.  There was a lot of dark wallpaper to go with that green carpet.

We found some funky colors and things under the wallpaper!  Some water damage to to the corner of the ceiling.  So many repairs had to be done before the new could go up.

We striped all the wood work and primed the stairs, wood work and the walls.

Then we painted the outside of each step blue - since we were putting down a runner - we figured there was no sense in painting the middle of the step!

Next was the exciting part - the new railing was going in!

We knew we wanted rope incorporated in the railing to give it a nautical look, but we wanted a strong secure hand railing. I, also, wanted some sleek metal connectors vs. knotting the rope at the ends because we have two dogs and a lot of dog hair!  I just imagined the dog hair clinging to some knots like it clings to the felt pads on the bottom of our chairs - and I did not want that! 

This was the least fuzzy jute rope I could find - again, looking for something that dog hair would not stick to.  These are the connectors we ended up going with.  At the top is just a hook and eye.

And what I thought was going to be a snap hook at the bottom, but when they came there were no actual snaps.  But it works fine - the ropes are taught enough that they won't come unhooked.

I am thrilled with how the railing came out!

We hung our new light fixture- it was one of the first things we bought just after we purchased the house - so it was nice to get that up after it had been in a box in the garage for at least a year and a half!  But then came the most time consuming part - the board and batten.

God Bless my husband!!!  This was not easy.  We had a lot of windows and doors to configure in this process.  Then of course - none of the walls were actually straight.

We did a lot of caulk, filling the gaps and a lot of sanding and several coats of paint.

Then the floor in the landing was laid- it matches the hardwood we laid on first level. 

We installed the carpet runner and it was all starting to come together! 

My girlfriend, Renee, was keeping a look out for an oar at garage sales for me - she found this one for $8 - it was perfect for the lower hand railing.

Lastly, we painted the inside of the two doors - one is our front door and the other leads to the garage.

All in all - this was a ton of work and we did it in steps over about 6 months time, but well worth it!

I love our end result.

Now it is on to another project!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Ann

Sources:

Wall Color - Sherwin Williams Ovation - Snowbound

Stair Color - Sherwin Williams Showcase - Northern Pike

Door Color - Sherwin Williams Resilience - Take Five

Runner - Lowes - Mohawk Home Topaz Indigo/Blue

Rope - Pat Catans  (craft store) 

Hardware - Rope and Knot Supply

I am linking up to the following parties:

Amaze Me Monday @ Dwellings - The Heart of Your Home

Inspire Me Monday @ My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Inspire Me Tuesday @A Stroll Thru Life

The Scoop @ Confessions of a Plate Addict

A Morning Cup of Joe @ The Cottage Market

Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch