Thursday, March 8, 2012

Stairwell Transformation - Farewell Purple & Orange

The staircase to the 3rd floor was scary - bright purple and orange paint, broken black plastic treads,  and no handrail.  Wow, it was in need of a dramatic change.  Our first thought was to just paint it white (that's when I took this picture), but that seemed too stark and we weren't sure white was a great color for stair treads.













Sooooo....I did some searching online and Pinterest had some great inspiration (not on Pinterest yet?  Send me a note and I'll send you an invite!).










  
I decided to use a combination of a couple of these - two colors of stripes and stenciled numbers. But the key to getting the stripes right is for them to be perfectly aligned.   The eye wants to look for variation, so these stripes had to be straight and a uniform width, all the way up.  How do we do that?  Well, you could use levels and lines.  But, this is a great application for our new Bosch laser level (GLL2-40).   Of course it's designed for much more technical applications, but it really came in handy.   We set it up on our camera tripod and instantly had vertical lines to do our taping.









See the red laser lines that Robin is using?


The advantage to this design is you only have to tape once and then paint your multi colored stripes.My friend Robin Amorello (an incredibly talented Kitchen designer) offered to come give me a hand.  It was great having two of us as we set everything up on the stairwell.  

After we taped, we started painting.  It went quickly and before it dried, we carefully removed the tape.  This helps keep the lines cleaner and avoids pulling up the base layer of paint.
Two coats of paint



We let that dry overnight and I came back the next day and stenciled in the stair numbers.  What do you think?  I love it!  It jazzes up the steps and provides a little touch of whimsy.  I'm going to coat it with a couple coats of clear, water based polyurethane to protect it and then it's ready for traffic!


Pin It

14 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks again for all your help and encouragement!!!

      Delete
  2. Love your stair redo. Fresh and fun!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Cheryl!!! We're really pleased with how it came out. Now we just have to get the rest of the house finished!

      Delete
  3. Such a cute idea! I love it. Megan ~ your newest follower via the Live Laugh Rowe link party.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It looks so awesome - I love this so much!!! You did an amazing job!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is AWESOME!! Came by from Live Laugh Linky :-) Im following for sure!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Stopping by from the Live, Laugh, Linky Thursday! http://queenofsavings.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks so much for all the kudos. This really was a quick job.....and what a difference it makes :-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. What, you didn't like the purple? I have some stairs that need a similar treatment. Thanks for the inspiration - these turned out amazing!! Thanks for linking up @ the Delectable Home.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Love. Love. Love!!! Thanks so much for linking up at Live Laugh Linky! Hope to see you again this week :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Really gives those steps and the whole area some personality!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Making partitions and leveling may be a a part of each construction work. creating partitions in rooms and leveling off shelves are everyday tasks of any contractor, whether or not massive or tiny.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...