The Hall and the Stair

My little carriage house is almost done! I had not originally planned to spend so much time and work on the entryway, stairway, and upstairs hallway. It was worth the time though. Not only is the stairway the first impression as you come in the door, it is also one of the most charming features.

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Once the walls and trim were a crisp white, I decided it would be best to scrape and paint the stair balusters and clean the bannisters. In the photo below you can see a section of the bannister that I started cleaning from the bottom up, which had blackened from more than a century of use. I love that the natural wood is still exposed here. I recently found out that human hands touching wood actually provides the best protective coating for it, better than a varnish or lacquer. Conversely, touching wood actually lowers stress in similar ways as being out in nature. For the wood balusters that had already been painted over, I decided to match the new paint color as closely as possible to the exposed wood of the bannister. I was fortunate to find a good match (Chocolate Therapy if anyone is wondering).

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The rise of the stairs was also pretty beat up from when carpet had been installed then sloppily removed. Since it is so visible, I covered the rise with beadboard. I also added the decorative bracket detail. The beadboard and bracket pieces needed to be measured and cut individually (because old houses settle and nothing is standard), then painted before installing them.

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In the entry way, three of four doors had been black, making the small space feel even smaller. The door leading to the living room was removed for better flow. After several coats of paint, the doors to the basement and the new half bath became white. The inside of the front door was painted the same brown color to give the appearance of natural wood.

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The old lock and door bell (an actual bell that you ring!) were neat features on the exterior door, but they were covered in several layers of paint. It took a lot of paint stripper and some fancy spray painting to get them looking good again. The foyer floor had been covered with marble tile, but several pieces were broken. When we took it up, we found that the wood floors were still in good condition. Mom helped sand, stain, and varnish this section to make it match the rest of the floor.

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Updates Completed

• Walls painted
• Trim painted
• Doors painted
• Door hardware stripped of paint
• Stair balusters sanded and painted
• Beadboard rise and brackets painted and installed
• Foyer floor sanded, stained, and varnished
• Toekick stained and installed