Decision time

I've been stalling the refinishing/painting of the staircase for three reasons:
1) indecision
2) laziness
3) financial hemorrhaging

So after numerous Photoshop attempts I've fixed problem number 1. We made a decision!

The above is obviously another Photoshop mock-up. This is what it will look like when finished - everything painted white except the banister and the treads.

At first I was a little hesitant about painting the post white. Funny our laziness as noted above actually helped the process. We noticed this same look in the Modern Family house as we were lounging catching up on our DVR on Sunday:


To be continued...

Cavalier Chandelier

On the hunt for a new dining room chandelier. Look at these beauties:

A little heavy but wow.

Love this, but maybe a little too severe?

Perfection

Perfection

The last two lights are $8000. Each. Of course they are my favorites and my eyes went straight to them on a page with about 25 other affordable lights. My insanely and awesomely expensive taste is a curse. I don't even love brass, but I could make an exception for these, like, if there was a situation where somebody forced me to have them. Or something.

:)

Sources here, here, here, and here

One more thing...

Yesterday I forgot (and Mom reminded me about) one more option for the stairs... Option E would be each step covered with sisal. I'm still leaning towards C.

Please tell me what to do :)

don't stair at me

Yesterday we tackled the staircase carpet. I just couldn't take it any longer. This was underneath:

yeah

Then about 2 hours of taking out all the staples and trying to clean the wood underneath:

This is as good at it is going to get. For now.

Are we ready to live with this while we decide what we are doing?
In the meantime we gave ourselves strict instructions to use slippers or shoes when traversing this thing. There may or may not be scary splintering wood sticking out all directions.

What should we do? As previously discussed many many times on this blog, the banister and woodwork will be painted white. But the rest??

Choice A - Refinish wood to match rest of house, add sisal runner:

Choice B: Refinish treads only, paint risers white:

Choice C: Refinish treads only, paint risers white, add sisal runner:

Choice D: Paint risers and treads white, add sisal runner:

And all the choices together:

A B C D

I'm leaning towards choice C, but not totally convinced. John really likes A. What do you think?

Staircase Walls

Remember this mess? Well, it's done!

I will spare you the grisly before photos (if you're really curious you can click the above link).

Here is what it looks like now:



We are so happy that we finally did this! (Or paid someone to do this!). I am all for taking the DIY route when I can - but this was clearly a case for the professionals.

Next up:

Most people viewing this will fall into one of two camps:
1) Burn the gosh ugly rug and paint the freaking wood paneling and banister already.
2) Burn the gosh ugly rug and don't let me see a paint brush in your hand!

Sorry, but it's gonna be number 1! Soon!

Screen Project

Our contractor mentioned the other day that he had some Indonesian-style folding screens. (Or maybe they are Indian? I don't know - I googled both and they both returned pretty much the same results.) Anyway, he had them for a long time and never did anything with them, and he was clearing out his garage and about to throw them out and offered them to us.

Here they are, in our basement:

As you can see, the center one is the only one intact. The one to the left is missing a top "arm"(?), the one on the right is missing a leg... and the one on the floor is cut in half (but it is broken along the joint, so it would be seamless to put back together.

John wants to put it all together as a working screen. I really like that idea... but I keep thinking about this big blank wall in our living room that has been really bugging me lately:

I am thinking about losing one of the screens and mounting the three best screens together in a row, so it would look like this Photoshop mock-up:

(We will eventually get a new couch in a toned-down color, also some new pillows, so use your imagination)

John also had the idea that the screens would look really awesome sprayed silver, so I mocked that up too:
Me likey! What do you think? Mounted to the wall or made into a traditional folding screen? Spray painted? What color?

Andirons and Irons

Is it me or am I getting a little slap-happy with the painting and spray painting?

Remember those andirons? The brassy ones from way back when? See:

Well, they've been tucked away in the basement for, like, a year. And I realized I had an opened can of metallic spray paint. In the exact dark metallic color needed. And I started thinking...

And one thing lead to another...

It was the perfect opportunity. Since this was the same spray paint used on the hinges and hardware of the built-ins:

Now I have one more major project for the fireplace (ok, two major projects if you count actually getting the fireplace to work)...
What can we do to the hearth area? I would like to use a material that is somewhat historically accurate to the 1920s. Or a nod to something that would be historically accurate to the 1920s.

Penny tile?

Marble tile?

One large slab of blue stone cut to size?

Color? Grout color? Am I missing something? Someone please tell me what to do.