Staircase Showdown

June 2012

Our major project before we refinanced was to completely renovate the stairwell of our house.  We had the stairs refinished when we did all the floors back in May 2010.  Since then we hadn't done much else.  The plaster walls were all cracked and crumbling, the paint on the ceiling was peeling from some past water damage, and there was one dim light for the entire space  It was a hot mess.  I haven't even talked about the faux wood panelling, fabric wall covering, ceiling hatches, and Asian inspired wallpaper that were throughout the space.

We got several quotes to replaster the room to get rid of the cracks and cover the peeling paint, however the amount of damage was intensive.  Most of the contractors recommended we chip out all the damaged areas and start fresh, or else cover the entire room in drywall and texture it to look like plaster.  Either way it was going to be about a thousand dollars and would involve us doing a large about of demo and not to mention all the dust.

We decided to go ahead and bead board the walls identical to what we did in the mud room.   We felt this would keep the house consistent and allow us to have the best overall product without any demo needed.  We called in the same friend/carpenter Gordon who did the mudroom to install the panelling in the space.  He said it would be about the same cost as the plaster work, with no demo required.

Josh and I, worked to come up with a design for the space.  We added a chair rail in the space.  This was for two reason: one it broke up the expanse of space, two it allowed us to fit all the runs in with a standard 4' x 8' sheet without any awkward joints.  The first day Gordon removed the ceiling fan, the lone light, wood panelling, and one of our attic hatches.  In two days he had panelled most of the room.  It was a huge change and we were super excited. Bye bye scary staircase.