House of Kords: update on our stairs

Last week I randomly undertook a project on a whim.  I planned on going into No.14 to work, but my mom called me to tell me she'd be going in and told me to get something done that I wasn't planning on doing.  

Enter: the stairs.  I packed myself up and high tailed it to Home Depot where I was getting a few looks as I was wearing an excessive amount of pink (it was raining and both my raincoat an my rain boots are shades of blush). 

Anyway...

The original footprint of our house prior to renovating it had the stairs smack in the middle of our house.  Of course, we wanted an open floor plan because geeeesh, we already live in a skinny little row house, let's make it appear to be as big as we can.  Our contractors relocated the staircase which obviously meant building new stairs.  Now, if you have hardwood floors in your house, it is a no brainer that your stairs would be the same stain as your hardwoods.  But, we have artificial wood flooring, a choice we made knowing that it is much more durable than hardwood if we choose to rent our home rather than sell it when we decide to move to the 'burbs (5ish years).  When the decision came to pick a color for the stairs, I didn't want to stain the tops to match our faux wood because I felt it would never be the right match.  We decided to continue with the very basic color scheme in our house and paint them Behr SILVER SCREEN. Which is a killer light grey that is on all of the doors in our house (seriously, one of my favorite colors). 

But. This is a very light color.  Especially when you're hauling up and down the stairs all the time.  Both Eric and I wear 'slippers' AKA he wears 'manly Ugg slippers (these to be exact) and I wear my Ugg Boots all the time because I hate having cold feet.   Needless to say, they were trashed from the start and with continuous wear and tear, they only got worst. 

I had been toying with what to do with them for the better half of the year we've been living here. I hated how messy they looked and I also hated the upkeep.  I thought about stenciling them, numbering them, etc.  Then all the sudden I had an epiphany.  The killer greyscale floral from my office- the floral I literally cannot ever get sick of- that was the answer. And lucky me, I had a few pieces of it left.  

The Paint.

I took a sample of it to Home Depot's paint section with me because I wanted to make sure I was getting a shade that complimented the colors.  Grey can range in undertone colors from green, to purple, to blue.  I settled on Behr's DARK ASH which I really think is the perfect deep shade because its not green, blue or purple- if anything I'd say it HINTS on purple but really...its just a great grey. 

The taping took forever.  Then all the sudden I realized this project was going to take me the entire week to do.  I had to paint every other step so we could still have access to our upstairs and I had to do two coats on each, so really it took roughly 4 days to paint.  The last coat I painted on Friday morning, then waited an entire 24 hours before applying the decals. 

Applying the decals.  

I. love. decals. & I. Love. my peeps at Urban Walls.  They make THE BEST decals out there and I have been buying their decals since college when I put polka dots in my dorm room.  I don't get super fancy with applying them, I just eye it up.  I did not measure, I would just hold up the decal to the stairs and make sure it would fit then press it, and cut along the line with a carpenter's knife.  *disclaimer* I recommend using something more safe and sturdy like an exacto knife but I didn't have one and I am the most impatient person on earth so I just went to Eric's tool box and knew this would suffice.  

A huge thing with applying these decals for me is movement.  I feel like they make the most impact when they look like they're cascading.  I did that in No. 14 with the peonies decals and I did that in my office with these greyscale decals (depending on the size/amount of stairs you have, you could get a half order.  Mine were leftover from my office & probably equal a half order because my stairs are skinny & small!).   My stairs were no different.  I purposely made the 'heaviest' part at the top, because that's where you can see them most, then I cascaded them down to the very corner.  

Ironically, I thought Eric wouldn't be the most thrilled about putting these up.  He's really patient with my decorating and I try not to be too girly in any room of our house (except my office!) But he actually LOVES them, or maybe he just saw how hard I worked on it and he's being sweet.  Regardless, I'm happy he doesn't mind them.   

I am so so so happy with how they ended up- it's like a little treat when I turn the corner to go up the stairs!