Making it Lovely » Stairway

Wood Doors, White Trim

Making it Lovely — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:54:42 +0000

I left the doors unpainted in the front entryway. (Thanks for your feedback.)

The door between the living room and the stairway shows its age a little (it’s original to the house, so 100+ years old), but I think it has character. We, or a future owner, could paint or refinish it someday.

And with that… hooray! All of the trim in the house has been painted — upstairs, downstairs, and in the basement! Happy dance time. I can finally cross that one off my list.

Wood Doors with White Trim?

Making it Lovely — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:39:29 +0000

I’m painting the trim in the front entryway. It’s the last spot in the house to get a coat of paint, so I’m finally getting on that.

Would you paint either door there? I’m thinking of leaving them as-is, even though I’ve painted all of the other doors in the house. The front door is kind of cool, and the door between the entry and the living room (off its hinges and leaning against the wall while I paint) is the prettiest in the house. It’s not weird to leave them wood, right?

Hang-it-All Up

Making it Lovely — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:44:09 +0000

The stairs to the basement are looking cute. Finally.

The stairway is right next to the back door in the kitchen, which is the entrance we use most often. We used to have hooks and a shelf there for our coats and shoes, but we took them down when we remodeled the basement. Then the contractor mistook them for trash (an easy mistake to make), and thus we had nothing up for a while. Outerwear began to migrate throughout the first floor and shoes abounded.

I bought what I thought was an Eames Hang-it-All from a discount shopping site, but it turned out to be a fake. It’s fine, I just didn’t realize that when I bought it. But it’s here and it’s cute, and it’s great for the basement stairwell.

An Eames Hang-it-All

The stairs made installation difficult. I did make sure to locate the wall studs though, and I put together a quick how-to in case you ever need to do the same.

Bye bye, IKEA shelves that were mistaken for trash. Hello, accidental knockoff Hang-it-All. If my house were a reality show, this area would be the bad girl, stirring up drama. And it would be the lamest reality show ever.

This is a pretty simple before and after. We painted the walls pink (Wild Aster, Benjamin Moore) and the door and trim white (Antique White, Benjamin Moore). We no longer needed a shelf because we added a shoe organizer (from the Orla Kiely collection that Target had a couple of years ago), which makes the shoes much easier to reach. Then we hung our new hooks.

We also added children to our family, for the sole purpose of having a reason to keep cute hats and coats around for ‘after’ photos.

It’s working out well!

p.s. I wrote about August’s cute lion hat here.

Hanging it All

Making it Lovely — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:04:53 +0000

I bought an Eames Hang-It-All from one of those invitation-only group shopping sites. You know… the ones I don’t typically like to shop at? And oops, I bought a knock-off. The tag listed it as a “George Nelson Timepiece” (huh?). It was cheap, yes, but I didn’t realize what I was buying, and for a knockoff it was pretty much the regular price.

That's a licensed Eames Hang-it-All. Mine looks mostly like it, but some of the colors aren't as vivid.

Oh well. It will be fine for the awkward stairway to the basement. We used to have some inexpensive hooks and a shelf from IKEA, but the contractors that worked on the basement remodel didn’t realize that we actually wanted them, so they were tossed. I guess they thought they were ugly relics that came with the house! Here’s an old photo of them in place.

I’ll make time to tackle installing the new hooks this weekend, and I’ll of course share photos after. If I don’t kick myself in the pants to get it hung, I’ll never get around to it! I’ve been meaning to do it for more than a month already.

Teeny Tiny Staircase Inspiration

Making it Lovely — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:57:05 +0000

I have two new flights of stairs to decorate. Yes, they’re for the dollhouse. And yes, I may be obsessing over getting them just right.

I’ve saved a ton of inspiration photos to my Pinterest board. I won’t post images to my blog that I can’t source (even though I really love some of those images), so go check them all out on my Stairways to Heaven board if you’d like to see. Below are just a few (the ones that I could trace back to their sources).

Jonathan Adler Beach House Stairs

Black and White Stairs

Numbered Stairs

Stenciled Stairs

I painted the stairs to our basement green, and now I’m thinking I should add a little something to them. For now though, I’ll stick to the miniature stairs. But what to choose? Pattern, a faux-runner, numbered stairs, quotes, stripes, fun colors…

Although it should be noted that our resident luchadores don’t mind the stairs being plain.

Quick New Curtains

Making it Lovely — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:49:01 +0000

I whipped up a couple of new curtains yesterday for the front door and window using an ANNO LJUV sheer panel from IKEA. The fabric was a little tricky because the flower petals are stiff and the rest is a very soft mesh, but I used the zigzag stitch on my sewing machine (a first for me) and that worked well. I think that slipping another café curtain rod (I use the $3 cheapies from Target) along the bottom will help the window curtain hang more smoothly.

The front entry seems to get so much more light now! Well, that’s probably also because I took the screen door off. I was feeling industrious yesterday.

Our Entry & Stairway

Making it Lovely — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:31:25 +0000

The walls of our front entry and stairway were clad in knotty pine when we moved in. We weren’t fans, to say the least. I wrote about priming the wood back in August of 2007, but I realized recently that I neglected to follow up with the finished look. Our baby gates went up this weekend, but I took photos before I installed them.

The paint color is Campground by Behr, and the fabric on the door and window was from IKEA, as was the little pink rug. I love the beautiful doorknob on the door to the living room, and I’m pretty fond of the vintage paper punch we use as a doorstop.

I hung a small painting that I made and put up a cute switchplate from Anthropologie. Above the railing that we installed, I hung four Syroco panels scored on eBay.

And here, a lovely shot of just how crowded this little area gets when you actually open the front door. Now imagine a baby gate on the bottom stair that swings out into the space. Nice.

At the Back Door

Making it Lovely — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:23:34 +0000

Brandon setup a little area near the back door for our coats and shoes (and a leash too).

This is where the stairs are that lead down to the basement, right next to the back door in the kitchen.

The hooks and shelves only cost about $15 total (from IKEA). We should have done this a long time ago.

Stairway Color

Making it Lovely — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:37:00 +0000

I chose a color for the stairway: Campground from Behr. I’m painting this weekend, so we’ll see how it looks…

Painting the Stairway

Making it Lovely — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:40:00 +0000

Brandon started priming the knotty pine in the stairway last night.

My dad was horrified when we said we planned to paint it. “That’s nice wood!” Sorry dad.

We actually found out from our neighbor that the previous owners had only recently put it up when they decided to sell! The addition was done sometime in the 50s (we think), so what was there before? Bare studs?

I’m not sure what color to go with now though.

You can see the stairway when you’re sitting in the living room and it opens up to the library, so obviously I want a color that will look good with both of the other rooms. You can also see into Brandon’s office when you’re in the living room (it’s on the same elevation), so there’s another color to consider. Oh, and the carpet is beige.

The living room has mustard/gold curtains and an orange chair, so I’m looking at those as possible choices. I also like pink (!), but I think the house has a lot of pink already and Brandon’s probably ready for a different color by now.

I’m going to change the curtains in the library, but I don’t know what I want yet. I have a bunch of Laceworks from Amy Butler that I bought for the room:

I’m not so sure about it now, but the fabric would work with the green ceiling in the library (“Flowering Herbs” by Benjamin Moore). I could repaint that if I need to, but I don’t want to. I’ve had enough of painting ceilings! If I go with that fabric, I could use the pink that’s in there… ;)