Latest acquisition: Eagle-topped porthole mirror

Whenever I go over to my grandma's house, she makes me take something home. Not food. Not gifts. She makes me take something from her house. This has been going on for years. Lucky for me, under all the old-lady crafty stuff is some actual good stuff. I guess there's something to be said for not getting rid of things for 40 or 50 years. Half of my unique "antiques" are from my grandparents.

My latest find: this eagle-topped porthole mirror. I've had my eye on it for a while, and she had no troubles parting with it. I'm not even sure she remembered she had it. (It was hanging in a rarely-used extra bathroom.)

I love the detail on it. Looks like fancy metalwork, but it's just molded plastic. I added it to my circular mirror installation in the recently renewed stairwell. Fits right in.

The middle one is kind of wishing it was a porthole mirror too now, so I will have to keep my eyes open while thrifting. Dare I say this might be a start of a collection?

Oh and FYI, I don't necessarily recommend taking pregnant self-portraits in the reflection of a convex mirror. Funhousey.

Stairway makeover reveal

My stairway makeover is finally complete. It only took three months, including some procrastination. (I'm really good at working on a project until it reaches about 95% completion, then the fire goes out.)

This project involved stripping ugly and peeling wallpaper, drywalling, painting stripes on the walls, painting the stairs and addressing a couple of egregious design dilemmas. But all is done now, and I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out!

This space is very tight and narrow. The door to the stairwell (shown in the first photo above) is a scant 23 inches wide and the stairs themselves are only three feet wide. Not a big deal if it's open on one side, but enclosed like this, it feels so much smaller than that. (Plus it makes it nearly impossible to take good photographs. Sorry, I tried.)

Despite the limitations, I did manage to squeak in a few decorative touches. I hung these two round mirrors in probably the only spot they wouldn't be in danger of getting knocked off the wall. Like I've mentioned before, I find it nearly impossible to go up the stairs without touching the walls. I'm sure everyone else does too.

I found this convex porthole mirror at an antique mall for $16. I'm not sure if it's old (probably not), but I thought that was a pretty great price. It's about 14 inches in diameter. The small mirror above it I pieced together from a round frame I found at the Goodwill Outlet and a mirror from the craft store. A little bit of E-6000 adhesive and all is good. I like how the wood tone corresponds to the banister and the door.

Speaking of the banister, it was the only existing piece that made it back into the space. It was in good condition. I liked the brass hardware. So I didn't see the need to replace it.

I also found a spot for these hanging brass monkeys I picked up a few months ago. I tucked them back in the corner behind the door frame as an extra touch. I kind of like how they are half hidden.

One major change was the lighting. The old sconce was pretty hideous and didn't adequately light the space. We actually installed two sconces replacing just the one, though I'm noticing now I don't have a photo of them both. (One is at the top of the stairs and the other about half way down.)

I scoured the entire internet for affordable (less than $100) sconces that would fit the space. I found this one for $57. There was one I liked slightly better, but at $99, the price difference was just too great, especially when multiplied by two.

Before I ordered, I did a final search on the name of this sconce and found it for $22 plus free shipping at a no-name online shop. The shop had good reviews and let me use Google checkout, so I took a chance. And they were at my house within four days. Two sconces for $44! Bargain accomplished! Lesson: Before you click "buy," always Google for a cheaper price.

The top of the banister used to be mounted to the wall with an unfinished piece of lumber. How chic! I decided that had to go and replaced it with this shield-shaped plaque I bought at Jo-Ann and painted the same color as the wall. (I'm kind of into shields for some reason.) I paid less than $1 after coupon. Cheap and better.

Elise talks about this space like she's annexed it as a part of her bedroom. Hopefully, I won't find her sleeping in there. I'm just glad she loves it as much as I do. It looks like it belongs with the rest of our house now, and it isn't the abrupt transition between her bedroom and the upstairs playroom it used to be.

See the before pictures >> 

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Stairway update: Camouflaged plumbing access panel

Over the weekend, I finished up the plumbing access panel at the bottom of our stairway. It's the design dilemma that's been driving me crazy, the one thing holding up the completion of this project.

My initial thought was to embrace it. Showcase it. Make it look like a feature instead of an oddity. But that didn't really work.

Instead, I took the advice of reader and blogger Michele. She suggested just making it go away, and after that first failure, I totally agreed.

So I made it disappear! Hiding it in plain sight with the same striped paint treatment I did on the walls.

Of course, it's not completely invisible; you can still see the dimension of the trim. But it blends in so well, it doesn't trip up the eye anymore.

I'm calling it a success. And now I'm able to move on and put the finishing touches in the rest of the space. Another update to come posthaste!

See all the stairway related posts >>

p.s. Do you instagram? Follow me @lansdownelife and I'll follow you back!

Stairway update: Hmm, yeah, this isn't working...

You might be wondering why I haven't done any stairway updates lately. The project has been in limbo. Mainly due to this:

A plumbing access panel for the bathroom on the other side of the wall.

I thought I knew what I was going to do with it. Since it was sort of framed, I thought it might be fun to paint a piece for the center and treat it like a piece of framed artwork.

I painted on a piece of un-stretched canvas, and then stretched and stapled it around the panel and ended up with this.

While I like the quickie one-day painting OK, it's not working in the space. It looks like the entrance to a candy shop or something. Too much on top of too much. I need a visually simpler solution.

Any suggestions for me? I have a couple of ideas rattling around my head, but one of them is far too time consuming to be practical.

See all the stairway updates >>

p.s. I'm instagramming now. Follow me @lansdownelife and I'll follow you back!

Stairway progress: Painted stairs

After a week of intensive stair painting, this project is finally showing signs of completion. The steps are now a deep shade of olive green, sort of antique and modern at the same time.

Before someone rakes me over the coals for painting wood, let me show you a few before shots:

Originally, I was thinking maybe I could strip and re-stain the stair treads, but ultimately decided against it. The stairs are soft pine with an ugly grain, loads of stains, and a little bit of water damage. I'm certain all the work it would take to refinish them would be wasted on a junky end product.

Let's get real. This is a modest, depression-era house in a middle class neighborhood. No fancy hardwood here. So if all that doesn't grant me a license to paint wood, I'm not sure what would.

After filling all sorts of holes and gouges with wood filler and some of the cracks with painters caulk, I was ready for primer. I used latex Kilz Premium, my favorite stain-blocking primer, and then it was time to paint!

In my design mock-up, I planned on painting a faux stair runner, but that didn't go exactly as planned.

When I started taping out my runner, I tried re-positioning the tape and the paint and primer peeled up along with an ultra thin layer of the stairs themselves. I won't belabor the details because I'd rather not relive it through the photographic evidence, but I ended up having to sand the stairs even after I had already primed them. There was anger and cursing and crying. But I powered through the awfulness of that, and then slightly changed my game plan.

I knew if I still wanted white borders along the edges of the stairs, that was going to set me back about three more days while I waited for each coat of the white paint to dry. (Latex enamel suggests waiting 24 hours between coats, and after my primer not sticking, I wasn't going to bend the rules.) If I just painted the entire width green, I could avoid that whole three day diversion without giving up much of anything.

It's also worth mentioning again that this staircase is only accessed through my daughter's room, which restricts me to painting during her waking hours.

So after that whole debacle, I primed two coats and then painted four coats of a bright olive green (allen + roth's Dog Park mixed into Valspar Porch and Floor paint). It was really thin; thinner than most latex paints, hence the four coats. In hindsight, I probably should have used a tinted primer. I don't know when I'm going to stop making that mistake.

I still have some touching up to do, especially on the trim. And I haven't given up on the idea of doing some detail painting. I have some ideas, but haven't started on anything yet. Part 2 coming soon. (I hope.)

p.s. I decided against any further detail painting for now.

See all the stairway updates >>

Stairway progress: Painted wall stripes

Are you ready for some stripey goodness? My stairway just got a whole lot more fun!

I envisioned bold, contrasting stripe, but instead of a pure black, I used the same dark gray-brown that I used on an accent wall in our bedroom (Olympic's Oswego Tea). (Which also means I didn't buy any extra paint for this project!)

There are probably a million tutorials on how to paint stripes out there, none of which I directly followed. Here's what I did.

After painting my main wall color, I drew pencil lines on the wall using a laser level (plus a regular level, a yardstick and smaller rulers) and then applied my tape to the pencil lines. Honestly, if I had a three or four foot level, I would have just used that instead of the laser level. Measuring and taping took a few hours, but it was the most tedious part of the process.

Before painting the stripes, I pressed down the edges of the tape with a plastic ruler to make sure they were completely adhered. I also put a little dab of tape in each of the white lines that weren't going to be painted. This might seem unnecessary, but believe me, when you are staring at tape lines six inches in front of your face, you need something to help you from going cross-eyed.

I painted the edges of the tape very lightly, almost dry-brushed them, with the base color. This is to prevent the second color from bleeding under the tape and creating jaggy lines. You can see in the photo above, I only painted the edges that face inward toward where my brown stripe would be painted.

I used a small foam roller to fill in the stripes. Again, I went really light on the paint. No thick globs or heavy coats. The stripes on the left are after one coat and the stripes on the right are after two coats.

After the first coat was dry, I painted the second coat, then ripped the tape off immediately before moving onto the next stripe. That is, I didn't let the second coat of paint dry on the tape. The lines came out crisp and clean. I never dreamed they would turn out so perfect. No jagged edges!

I did do a bit of touching up once the second coat of paint had dried. There were a few spots where the paint was thin, but I carefully fixed those areas without applying any more tape.

I LOVE the way they turned out. I don't always feel this strongly about the things I make/do, but in this case, I really do love them.

I asked Elise, "do you like my stripes?" And now every time she sees them, she asks me, "do you like my stripes?"

Next up for a paint job are the stairs themselves. This project is sucking all the free time out of me, so I probably won't have any more posts this week. Stay tuned! I (for one) can't wait to see how this thing turns out!

See all the stairway updates >>

Mixing latex paint leftovers + "oops" paint

Yesterday, I talked a little bit about liquidating my paint stash. (Lots of paint, need to use it up before it gets gross.) So when it came time to paint the stairwell, I knew I just had to make it work without buying more paint. And I'm proud to report the white paint I used in the stairwell was all stash, baby.

But there was one catch; I didn't have enough of any one shade of white to do the entire area. I had 3/5 gallon of off-the-shelf white, about half a quart of some exterior white, a small remnant of the white used upstairs on the trim and a full quart of a near-white "oops" paint I picked up on clearance for $2.50. All semi-gloss.

You can see where I'm going with this. I just dumped everything into the gallon can, stirred and stirred some more. And voila! A full gallon of paint! Don't be afraid to mix it up! It's paint. It's not going to explode or anything.

I understand if you wouldn't want to try this for one of the main rooms in your house; I probably wouldn't do that either. But think less traveled areas: basements, closets, laundry rooms, etc. Places where cheap trumps finding the perfect shade.

Pay attenion to sheen if that matters to you. And it should go without saying that you should not mix latex and oil paint together. That would result in quite a mucky mess. Big no no.

Stairway update: Painting the walls

I am inching my way closer to completion with my stairway project. We have painted walls, people! White walls can be exciting (when they are replacing dinginess). More than anything, the stairwell feels clean. And that's a sentence I could never write before now.

I painted the walls white to bring more light into this dim space. And since I myself have a hard time not touching the walls while going up and down the steps, I assumed everyone else in the house would also be touching them. A durable semi-gloss was definitely in order.

A reminder, here's what it looked like before we started this whole tear-down-the-wallpaper-and-why-not-the-walls-too process.

I'm just going to glaze over the part where I meticulously patched the plaster. I didn't think you all could stand another post about ugly plaster walls. I spent way too much time trying to smooth out all the imperfections.

Safe to say that the reason these walls were probably wallpapered in the first place was because of all the cracks and unsightly bulges. I did the best I could, but some areas were just too far gone to make them completely square and level. This is an 82-year-old house, remember? And with that brings walls with bumps and lumps and a subtle wave. Just part of the charm, right? Right.

Bumps or no bumps, I am thrilled about how bright the space is becoming. I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but it's mostly fun stuff. (That is, more painting.)

See all the stairway updates >>

Stairway update: Design plan

We've been working hard on the stairway walls to bring them back to a paintable state, but it's a slow process. I've been scrubbing off wallpaper paste, patching the plaster and sanding like crazy. My dad has been taping and mudding drywall. But we're not quite done yet.

Instead of showing you more dull photos of unfinished walls, I thought I'd let you in on my design plan for the space.

First, a few parameters:

• I want the walls to be light. This area gets next to no natural light. Dark in the daytime!

• Looking at the stairwell from upstairs, it is obvious to me that the upper walls should be white. I want it to feel like an extension of the room, instead of treating it like some weird, detached "other" space. (Excuse me for using an old photo of the playroom. It is not nearly this tidy at the current moment, with loads of tools and toys all over the place.)

• The space below is pretty well isolated from the rest of the house. You don't see it from upstairs (unless you are at the top of the stairs). And you don't see it from the main living space downstairs. You get a tiny peek through a door frame from Elise's room, but that's it.


• It is small and a transitional space (that is, you pass through it instead of spending time in it).

Those two things mean it's time to go bold with color and pattern. I want something clean, vibrant, youthful, fun, modern, but sort of classic at the same time. And all of that adds up to.... stripes!

I thought about doing an all-over stencil, or some hand-painted pattern, but in the end I just keep coming back to stripes.

Now, I admit this crude Photoshop mock-up looks a bit intense. In reality, I'm pretty confident it will not be quite so bright and in your face.

I painted a sample board of the stripes, mainly just to decide on a width, but I really think they are going to work in this small area. (And yeah, that photo was taken before I washed the walls.)

As for the stairs themselves, I'm going for a mid-tone green. Not too dark that it sucks all the light out of the space and not light enough to see scuffs or dirt.

I brought home a bunch of green paint chips. They are all really different. And of course, the all look way different in the dark stairwell.I'm going to wait until we install the new lights before I choose the right shade. I'm also thinking of trimming out the "runner" with some stripes in coordinating tones.

So that's the plan! What do you think?

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