The Stairs.

I know I know. To most people a stairway is not a big deal.

But in our little cottage, it is in the center of the house. It divides the living room from the kitchen.
It is a centerpiece of sorts.

As I look around at the beautiful pine wood that Rich has added to the walls, I realized that the ugly old carpeting and dark wood rough cut posts needed to go. 

In fact I rarely took any photos directed towards the stairs in our house because. Well.
They were just downright ugly. 
[See Morris photo in previous post.]

Here is a shot of the stairway before we added the pine wood in the eating area.

First I painted the stairs white and the brown sides of the stairs white.

It took only a couple of coats and came out pretty nice looking.
However as tempting it is to have white stairs, I decided to add color to the 'risers'.

We debated long and hard on the color. Rich wanted tan. I said absolutely NO tan! No brown!

We also debated the stair railing. We could take it down and replace it, or I could strip it and clear coat it. One way or another, it will have to be refurbished. Too many years of hands up and down it have caused it to be gunky looking. 
Yes 'Gunky' is my technical word for icky.

Funny how you pretty one thing up and it leads to another item that needs fixing. 

So I put plastic up over the pine and taped the edges of the stairs. I was going to work on painting the ceiling and when my arms tired of that, I was going to start a bit on the stairs.

So I tuned in Pandora to my oldies station and began to paint.

Here is a little preview of the color we are using on the stairs. Since it is just a quick coat, please don't judge it until you see the final shots!

We will be adding carpet treads at a later date. I have them picked out already.

Today's job is to try and finish off the ceiling. I think I will need to run to town and get more paint. The ceiling was in need of repair and now it needs to be brightened up to match the new section of the house.

See? One thing after another!