Making Our House Our Home, Step 3: Stair Renovation!

My third post in my “Making Our House Our Home” series, our Stair renovation! Boy was this a process. I honestly had no idea what I was getting into when we decided to redo our stairs so suffice it to say, it was a good idea that we decided to hire a professional! lol When we initially moved in, as you can see in the photo, the stairs were beautiful but dated. I knew that I wanted something more contemporary and I knew exactly what I wanted, for once! 😂

The Breakdown:

First up on the list was to have the stairs stained, which they did when we got our floors done, to check out all about my new floors, you can read that post and see before and after photos HERE! Next up was choosing a new baluster. A Baluster is a short pillar or column, typically decorative in design. Since I was looking to add a contemporary touch, I chose this beautiful box style one for the base and top of my stairs with minimal clean lines 👍🏽

Along with that, I chose to change out the wooden balusters along the entire staircase as well and replace them with nice iron ones. I absolutely love how the iron looks and how much it changes the entire look of any staircase coming from wood! I chose two balusters, one that was more decorative with the decorative sphere and the other that was plain to give them some balance. Our stair guy also created a custom handrail for us and we completely replaced the one that was originally there.

 

What’s Next?

Now we were left with the dilemma, we had partially stained stairs (the floor stainers only stain the tops of the stair plates because their sanders only sand flat surfaces apparently 🤷🏽‍♀️) and bare wood balusters. Next up was to hire a painter to come sand, stain, and paint the remaining parts of the stairs to finalize the project.

*TIP: Get multiple quotes from people when you want to have work done in your home. Compare not only the final quoted price, but how comfortable you are when you meet them. Do they seem knowledgable and passionate about their work? Do they offer to use materials that you are comfortable with? How many people will be working on the project and how long will it take? Remember sometimes you need to leave these people with your house key if it’s an all day/week project, you need to be 100% comfortable with them.

We chose a painter who was the perfect fit for us and got the job started right away. There was about a 3 week time period where we were in limbo with the stair renovation because we had so much going on so nailing down this appointment was such a great accomplishment! lol We chose the stain to match our floors (a 1:1 mix of Minwax Special Walnut and Dark Walnut), and chose the same white we had for our trimmings around the house for the trim on the stairs and kick plates of the stairs.

The white paint needed just one more coat in this photo!

I LOVE the way the grain pops in these balusters!

 Almost done the project but I could’t help but snap this photo of my beautiful wrought iron balusters! I was so happy with the final outcome of this stair project! 👏🏽