It's Week 3 of the One Room Challenge, a decorating event created by Linda of Calling It Home where participants complete the transformation of a room in only six weeks. The "room" I've decided to refresh is my staircase. If you missed my combined Weeks 1 and 2 posts where I showed you the 'before' pics, you can catch up here. Otherwise, continue on so that I can share my inspiration photos!
Photo: Sloan Mauran Interior Design via Style At Home
My heart fluttered when I first saw this staircase by Toronto interior designer Sloan Mauran, and years later it still makes my heart beat fast every time I look at it! I love the black and white, the Greek key stair runner, the picture moulding going up the wall. And obviously I like the cat. :)
Clockwise from top left: Sage Design; Crisp Architects; TRG Architects; Diamond Custom Homes
Here's a photo collage of some staircases that caught my eye while browsing around on Pinterest, and these inspiration photos are more practical and have helped me make decisions with regards to deciding which stair parts get painted black, and which to paint white (I will not be adding a stair runner at this time, nor am I ready to add any moulding). Naturally, the treads will be black and the risers white. The newel post at the bottom of the stairs was trickier - at first I thought I wanted it white with a black cap (like in the pic at bottom right), but once the first coat was on it didn't look great with the black handrail. After that mini trial-and-error, I've decided to go with an all-white newel post and cap with black handrail for the banister going up the stairs, but at the top of the stairs I will have an all-black newel post and cap with black handrail, along with white spindles (there are no spindles going up the stairs... in fact, there is nothing but a handrail going up the stairs... that's a story for another post!). In the end, it's going to resemble something more like the pic at top left.
Here's a progress photo, and last week I promised to share a simple stair-painting tip so that you can still get up and down them while they are wet, which will become apparent in this photo:
The simple trick to painting stairs is to paint every other stair and carefully double-step your way up and down them while that first coat dries. Then, when you've painted the next set of every other tread and they're all the same colour again, place a piece of scrap paper on the dry, first coat so that you remember which ones you can step on. So easy, right?
That's all I have to show for now! I may skip next week's update and chime back in on Week 5 since this is such a quick and easy project that there isn't much to show (not to mention I'm not even doing it myself, it's being done as a thank you from a friend who is staying at my house while in between world travels). To see more One Room Challenge projects, visit my friends and other guests who will be linking up on Calling It Home tomorrow. I'm also avidly following the 20 featured participants of the ORC and you can too here.
