Upstairs Hallway

Here is a before and after picture of the upstairs hallway. This shows how far that railing went around. Painting the twisted and fancy shaped pieces, was a bit tedious, but gave it some life again on the cheap!

The carpet looks great, and we got a good deal for it, and had it installed, in all 4 bedrooms as well as this upstairs hallway and runner down the stairs. But you can see by the after picture, how much better the walls were looking.

There had been a wallpaper border (this house had wallpaper everywhere!) I got creative with a sponge mop. After wetting it down, from the upper hallway standing at the railing, I then taped a wallpaper scraper to a broom handle and scraped off the wallpaper without any scaffolding! I thought that was creative! Then painted with a roller on a long stick, and used a ceiling edger on the stick as well.

Staircase upgrade on the Cheap

Here is a before and after picture of the staircase. It was too expensive to replace the wrought iron 1970's railing, so I lightly sanded it, and used black tremclad. It cleaned it right up and looks much better.

I also sanded and varathaned the exposed 6 inches or so of stair tread on each side, and painted the riser with the trim colour we are using around the house.

We felt for safety and to finish it off, that we would continue with the same carpet that was installed upstairs, as a runner down the center of these stairs. The railing goes not only up the stairs, but along the hall as well, so there was a lot of tremclad to do!.

Kitchen Cabinets

Today, it felt like everything was starting to come together. It has been over two months, on wallpaper stripping, demolition, bathrooms, flooring and more, but today we saw very fast progress. It gave us all a "ahhhh" moment!

I have included a BEFORE picture, I am sure you can guess which one it is. The Home Depot team installed the kitchen cabinets, and we now need to do a back splash, and install the appliances, which are sitting in the living room. The electrics have been upgraded, and Adair is getting quite good at plumbing. Hailey was helping and putting up mirrors and towel racks in the bathrooms, plus today they spent out and about purchasing 300 feet of trim, mostly baseboard, plus closet bi fold door kits.

But the kitchen, made everything seem worthwhile today...

Finishing Wood Stairs

Finishing wood stairs, can be difficult, especially if they are not really in very good condition.

With the staircase in this house, the stairs were natural wood with varathane, and were worn down and dirty. We made the decision to get a carpet runner down the middle, so we had to sand and finish the 6 or 7 inches on either side, including painting the stair risers.

It took a lot of sanding, especially since you can't get power tools inbetween the railings, so sanded it the best I could, then used a tack cloth to get rid of debris, and varathaned it in a satin finish.

There are lots of dents and knicks and gouges, but they just looked "rustic" when I was finished. This left a opening in the center of the stairs where we could all still run up and down. I painted the riser, which was wood, the same off cream that all our trim was. I then lightly sanded the iron railing, and then painted it with tremclad black. Painting the railing took over 3 hours. It was also upstairs in the hallway.. Lots of it! But looks much better.

Still looks messy, with the center not refinished, but once that carpet runner is installed it will look great!