House Progress: Our Rear Stairwell

This is probably not the most exciting home renovation post but Josh and I have spent the better part of three weekends sanding, caulking and painting our way through our rear stairwell/pantry area and it only seemed right to give it a little attention on the old blog. This is another space that's a bit tricky to photograph so let me do my best to walk you through it. So this stairwell connects our kitchen to our second floor hall/bedroom area. Right off the kitchen entrance is our pantry (pictured below), lots of hooks for extra jacket storage and then the stairs to the second floor. At the top of the staircase is a little vestibule and a door that opens into the upstairs hall. Up until a few weeks ago we had done absolutely nothing to this space. I also forgot to take any before photos until we were well into the renovations. So you'll have to forgive my crappy little collection of "befores". This area has three light fixtures; one at the bottom of the stairs in front of the pantry, one hanging from the ceiling in the center of the stair well that matched the beauty in the photos below exactly and one in the vestibule at the top of the stairs. That one was just a bare bulb sticking out of the ceiling. It was all just really lovely as you can imagine. Also, all the trim throughout was still the stained wood. Which, it's not that I hate the look of stained wood but the kitchen was already painted out white, as was all the trim in the upper hall so there was just this weird pocket of stained trim back here when you transitioned between the two that didn't make any sense at all.  The walls were a peachy/pink color (you can see the last of it in the photo below on the right) and there were terrible roll shades with granny fringe hanging from the windows. I'd already disposed of those before I thought to take the before photos but they pretty much looked just like this.

 

There was also this old commercial grade carpeting on the stairs that had definitely seen better days.

It was just time for some changes. So we painted out the trim, walls, ceiling and stair risers white. We updated the light fixtures, window coverings, hooks, outlets, switches etc. and replaced the carpeting. Whew. It was a lot of freaking work for a back stairwell. But it needed done, and I'm so happy that it's over with now ;)

Here are some photos of the stairwell now.

 

And there it is! I know it's just a stairwell, but man finally having it updated is SO exciting. It was such a sad, dreary space before and now it fits in so much better with the rest of the house. I still need to get artwork for the walls, and a rug for the bottom of the stairs (not to mention a whole new kitchen/pantry floor but that's a story for another day) but I am so happy with the strides we've made so far.

 

Source List: Paint color Benjamin Moore OC-17 White Dove, carpeting, window shades, light in vestibule, large lantern light, black pendant light, hooks from Lowes and lots of sweat and elbow grease from Josh and I ;)