I sparked quite a conversation about the exterior of my house yesterday! I’ll circle back about that later and share more of my plans for it. Today, we’re back to the inside.
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know we’ve done a lot to our home. Every room has been painted at least once. We’ve overhauled the kitchen, the half bath, the master bath. We’ve made improvements to the basement and all of the bedrooms. There really isn’t a lot left to do on the inside and, as much as I enjoy all of the DIYing, I’m really happy to be at the stage when I can focus on some of the small, neglected areas and the unfinished details. I tend to look at the big picture of the space and have a hard time buttoning down and finishing the little, mundane projects.
The first on the list is the halls and stairway. The stairway walls especially are getting a little grungy, as they often do, with sticky little hands dragging across them regularly. I’ve also touched up some of the walls with the wrong paint. Nice.
This stairway has always been tricky for me, because it’s small, dark and oddly shaped. It used to have a window to the outside at the top of the steps, but that window now leads into an attic over the addition.
When I was out shopping a few months ago, I found this awesome antique map of Pennsylvania for only $35! I knew it would be the perfect piece to cover the window and make a statement going up the steps.
We hung it using curtain brackets, so it can be removed when we need to gain access to the attic. It was made clear that little boys are not to hang from it or they will incur the wrath of mom. Once the walls are painted, I want to fill them up with family pictures and maybe a few smaller maps to create a gallery.
I’m going to be painting the walls the same color as the home office, Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore.
It’s time to refresh the paint on the risers of the steps. They are getting pretty banged up now, but held up surprisingly well for 8 years. I’m looking into getting a runner for the steps as well. The narrow wood steps can be slippery and have already claimed one tooth from our family! I think a runner will make them safer.
The downstairs hallway is sort of a continuation of the stairway, so I’ll be painting those walls the same color. A few weeks ago, I hung up a great picture of my Opa as a young man, surrounded by girls. He was a very charismatic guy who made friends everywhere he went and this picture typifies that.
(To give you an idea of floor plan, I’m standing in the small 1/2 bath and the stairs are to the left of the doorway.
This is a picture of the same hallway from the living room. The 1/2 bathroom door is just to the right of the archway and the stairs are to the right of that. I think the pale gray will look pretty and fresh through the archway.
(You can see we still haven’t put a finish on the floor. I am enjoying them raw!)
And I need to do the tedious task of painting a bunch of trim.
When we moved in, the trim matched the doors. It was all an orangey pine. I just couldn’t take it, so I painted it white. It was a ton of work and, when I was halfway through, I realized I had one can of bright white, which is what I wanted, and one can of off white, which I had already used on half of the trim. ARGH! It was too late to turn back and I didn’t have the money to buy another can of paint, so I exchanged the bright white for more off white to get the job finished.
As I’ve repainted rooms over the year, I’ve updated the trim to the bright white, but there is still more to do and the hallways are the worst! The trim on seven doors awaits me. Oh, what joy is mine. You can see the difference here…
(I don’t think I need to point it out, but the bright white is on the left.)
And while the paint is out, I need to touch up the baseboards and shoe molding that we chewed up when sanding the floors. It’s going to be a pain, but it’s one of those attention-to-detail-things that makes a big difference.
We’ll also be starting work on the upstairs bath soon. We’re not doing a major overhaul, but we’ll tile the floors, swap out the fixtures and gussy up everything else.
I’ll share details when we start working on it, but part of gussying it up will involve this…
30 Responses
I feel like I’ve walked into a completely different house! It’s interesting to see the parts of your home that aren’t featured on the blog all the time. It helps to put a picture together! I can’t wait to see the finished details, the grey walls will look fabulous. P.S. I love that picture of your Opa! It’s family details like that that really make a house. Love it.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that started painting trim white & then realized that I only had one can of that specific white..! I can’t wait to see what you do with the bathroom :)) as it’s already adorable! P.s. I NEED to try out some of your milk paint , I’ve heard AMAZING things from another awesome fellow MI blogger { The Golden Sycamore } !!! :)))
Paige.Rose
Gray Owl is my most favorite color ever. I think it will look fabulous in the hallway. The photo of your Opa is a treasure, what an amazing shot to share. It is great that you have something like that. Good luck with the trim, you know it will be a relief when it is over, though!
Maybe it’s an illusion, but it looks like the TP is an awfully long way away from the toilet. I think I’d fall off if I was reaching!!! 🙂 Can’t wait to see what you do next.
Yep, that’s because of the wide angle lens I’m using. The bathroom is really, really small, so it’s not a big reach at all.
I dunno’, maybe it’s me, but tiling the floor and new fixtures IS a major overhaul!
LOL…In the other two bathrooms, we removed everything and started over, so that’s what I mean by a major overhaul. We’re keeping the sink, tub and tile surround. We’re just swapping out the toilet, tiling, changing out the fixtures and decorating. That’s getting a pretty big bang for the buck.
I love doing the big projects…the little things take just as much time, but the overall WOW moment isn’t as fun. 🙂
I’m curious about why you painted the trim and not the doors.
We have the same orange-y stained pine, and I was able to convince my husband to let me paint the trim, but he wanted all the doors and windows left in their (ahem) natural state. Until we painted the ceiling last week, then I was able to convince him to let me paint just one door. All the rest are on the list now. 🙂 His argument was that the doors were solid wood, and therefore expensive, and painting them would hide it. My argument was that paint doesn’t make them not wood, just prettier and brighter for us in our little home. So, before I paint the rest of my doors, please share your reason for not doing it. It’s nice to hear both sides before committing to something.
I totally agree! I often use that argument about painting wood. I love wood, I just want to paint some it, but it’s still WOOD! 🙂 I kept the doors wood, because I like how they look framed out in the white trim. Just a preference, though.
The timing of this post is so perfect for me, I too am updating our upstairs bathroom which hasn’t been touched since the 80’s. The trim and doors are all stained a dark country pine which was so popular at the time. Now I want to lighten it up and am curious about how you did your hallway trim? I recently painted the dark stained vanity in the bathroom with Miss Mustard seed flow blue and it looks like an old distressed vanity …seeing the dark stain peeking out hear and there works! Now I would like to lighten up the trim and doors with a smooth solid finish in a shade of white. I thought that I could cut out the step of applying a couple coats of primer if I used your milk paint with a bonding agent? Perhaps there is no shortcut to painting over dark stain with a light color without sanding and priming before applying a latex or oil based paint. If you could share any thoughts on this tedious task I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!
I’m not Miss Mustard Seed, and our pine trim wasn’t dark, just more “orange”, but we primed everything with an oil based primer (hard to find these days) and then painted over it with regular semi-gloss latex. I would have preferred a more satin finish, but with 5 children at home I needed the tough factor that semi-gloss provides. I’m getting ready to paint over my doors, and I don’t have any oil based primer, but I’m going to use Behr brand stain blocking primer and sealer. I’ve done 2 doors already and it looks like it will work just fine. Just a note, if you have knots in your pine that aren’t completely sealed, you might need to use a shellac sealer on them so they don’t bleed through your paint. We use Bin by Zinsser. They have an “advanced” formula now that smells much less than the old one and still works great. We just used it on our ceiling. 🙂 Hope this helps. Oh, and I didn’t sand before I painted the trim and it has held up just fine. I’m hoping for the same with the doors as sanding isn’t an option in our little house in the winter.
I just painted my stairway walls and halls Gray Owl and LOVE it. I also did the bottom half in bead board and painted it bright white. Looks so fresh now! Easy to clean too with all the grandchildrens little hand prints! I started a gallery wall last week and hung 64 frames. Many need to be refinished, painted etc.. but they are up on the wall and look great. Now to sort through pictures and fill them! BTW Use the idea on Pinterest to cut out paper templates from wrapping paper backside and hang them on the wall with painters tape. So easy to move around and figure out where you want everything to hang.
I always love seeing your projects in your home. Very inspiring!
Oooooo! The Etched Arcadia Mural from Anthropolgie! Very whimsical. Love it.
The picture of your Opa is fantastic!!!!!! It makes the house!
Hi, you have a very charming home and I can’t wait to see the painting on the outside of it….I think it’s a great idea! I was wondering what color of paint is that in your bathroom? It’s very calming.
Oh Marian, I feel your pain at the prospect of painting all that woodwork. I have recently moved in with my partner, a 3 bed bungalow…. 11 doorways…. all in major need of lots of sanding and paint! I love the colour you have used in the bathroom.
Hi Marian,
I love the look of your raw floors as well. Why don’t you just use the hemp oil on them? Then every few years you can freshen them up. As you know it will darken the wood as would any finish but would look beautiful in your home 🙂
I think some wall sconces (battery powered) or one of those picture lights (those brass ones like you see in an art museum) would be really pretty over/around your map and would help lighten up your stairway.
Beautiful. I think even when we’re done, there is still more we see we want to do. By time I’m finished, it’s time to remodel what I started off with.
Oh my – I can’t wait to see what you do with that special piece – I saw that when shopping online and just swooned over it –
Marian, you’re going to have to convince me that that grey mural will enhance anything. Sorry, but my reaction to it is, “Oh, wow, that is dark and rather depressing.” (Just being honest here.) I’m sure you must have a vision and I know you have great taste, so maybe I’ll be totally surprised when you’re finished, but I just feel like it would not be an up-lifting piece for me to look at every day. Of course, that’s just my opinion and I”m open to having it changed. If anybody can, I believe it would be you, as I usually love everything you do!
Wow. Those of us who love our homes and love to decorate ALWAYS have a long To-Do list I think. Are we ever really done? My list is so long it is overwhelming. I have been trying to finish up my Master Bedroom for the past year and am nearly finished. I am dying to get started in my daughter’s room which needs a complete overhaul including new flooring. My son’s room needs a makeover and at 19 he may be out of the house before I get to it! My garage studio really needs to be prettied up and organized. It is a disaster and now I am knee deep in ripping up our laminate flooring in the kitchen, entryway and hallway due to our washing machine springing a leak. Water seeped under the laminate and it’s ruined. Buying a new kitchen floor was not on our list! Good Luck with your projects.
You are diligent and it will make a big difference to finish the small things! Can you fit a solar tube in your stairwell? Or some lighting? It would make it look bigger I bet and add safety.
Did you hand paint the design on the risers? I’m looking for that kind of design for a wood table refinishing project.
P.S. I am glad you are leaving that super cool sink in place…I can see that it has its limitations with no counter space, but it’s authentic and old and one of a kind.
like, like!!
We moved into our house when it was literally 1/2 built. Plywood floors, no doors on cabinets, bathtub on one floor, toilet on another. (Our inspector showed us mercy since we had sold our first house and were desperate to move-in.) This was 10 years ago. It is now 90% built. The adage about the last 10% taking as much time as the first 90% is very true. Our stairs are now lovely cherry with a white balusters.
When it came time to paint the stairwell, I chose a color that was about the same color as handprints – Accessible Beige by Sherwin Williams in the Cashmere finish. It is a lovely beigy-grey and sometimes even slightly green. It was really expensive and it has held-up really, really well. And, the kids have always been told, under penalty of death, their hands belong on the “hand rail.” : ) They abide by this rule – mostly – but our staircase is open and I can see them!
We too have had the heart-stopping sound of children thumping down the stairs – footie jammies were particularly treacherous. Fortunately there has been no permanent damage to them… or to the stairs. My experience with runners is that they can be just as slippery, and you have to put nail holes in your treads. Just a thought.
What did you use as a primer for the wood trim when you painted it? My house and woodwork is very similar to yours and I just can’t take the orangey wood trim anymore. A painter told me I would need to use latex primer (if I remember correctly) so the color of the wood didn’t bleed through. The problem is it has a strong odor and with little kids in the house I would rather avoid that if I could.
I think you probably mean an oil based primer. A lot of oil products are being removed from the market, so there are a lot of great “waterborn” oil paints that aren’t as stinky and still have good adhesion. I used a good bonding/sealing primer that was water based.
Thanks so much! You are right, it was an oil based primer the painter recommended. I’ll look into water based instead!