Home Decorating – Painting an Outdated Wooden Staircase
Many American homes that were built in the 30s, 40, 50s and 60s have the typical stairway that you see as soon as you come through the front door. Often times that staircase is narrow and looking up the stairs; the hallways leading to the second floor can seem very dark. A great, inexpensive option to modernize an old staircase is with paint. Painting real wood stair parts is easy as long as you prepare properly and never cut corners when it comes to the quality of paint and brushes you work with.
Very popular paint finishes for a stairway include high gloss in bright white or a subtle off white to truly brighten up the area. For an urban chic, modern look, use darker colors and choose a paint with an urban matte finish. Rich chocolate brown is very popular right now.
Here are a couple of key points for painting a staircase without any troubles:
It is imperative that you remove old paint or stain so you have just the bare solid wood to work on.
As soon as all the last bits of paint and stain are gone, sand the wooden treads and risers and spindles and hand rails using a fine grit sandpaper to get a smooth, ready to paint surface.
Be sure you select the best quality floor paint you can afford. If you are uncertain, consult with a paint specialist at Home Depot, Lowe’s or your local home decor store and get advice. You want to buy a hard wearing, durable product that is a snap to keep clean, will give you the color shade you want and will hold up for a very long time.
Always apply a high quality primer coat to all stairway parts including the steps, the wood risers, the solid wood balusters, wood newel posts and railings. If you see that the wood really soaks up the primer severely, let the first coat dry fully and then apply a 2nd coat of primer. Allow to dry for a full twenty four (24) hrs.
Use superior quality painting brushes and rollers to ensure a smooth finish and brush on the first coat of paint. If possible, allow twenty four hours between paint coats. If you have removed the old paint correctly and chose a good quality floor and staircase paint, you will only need to apply two (2) coats. In certain cases, you might need to add a third coat, which is often the case for deep base colors such as lipstick red and royal blue.
Do not allow your family to walk on the stairs until it has absolutely dried. For fun, apply the last coat of paint on Friday late afternoon and then get away for a family weekend away and come back to a brand new stairwell.
The best thing about paint is that is affordable, you don’t have to hire an expensive professional and it is never permanent. If you really are disappointed the final look, you can always do it again!
Categories: Home Improvement Tags: architecture, Home Improvement, Interior Design, stairs, stairway
Add Glamor to Your New Abode with Wrought Iron
Unlike a vintage home that is often riddled with restoration issues, one of the best parts of moving into a new house is that it will be a hassle free experience. However, a new residential property can sometimes be a little cold, depending upon the size, construction style and layout.
An interior design inclination that was born in the wild west of America and has spread across the USA is the use of decorative metal inside the house to add warmth, personality and appeal. Everyone used to choose natural wood as a decorator adornment material, but iron is a smart choice that is welcome in nearly every room in your new residential property.
Foyer. Starting from the first time you enter your new home, you can use iron details that will visually adorn the entrance to your house. Wrought iron balusters on the center hall staircase are a good starting point.
Living Room. If you have a ornate salon or living room, cast iron accents can still work to infuse a drop of the unique and perhaps give the room a little more warmth, and a little less seriousness! Wrought iron or metal crown moulding can be remarkable in a large room, or have a customized fireplace screen built to match the other decorator accents in your living room.
Family or Great Room. This family friendly gathering point of your residence is a wonderful place to insert wrought iron décor elements. As you may know, iron is hard wearing and long lasting so it can stand up to anything your kids or pets can dish out. Wrought iron and solid wood tables are a splendid yet laid back concept for your family room. You can also include iron on or around your fireplace mantel or on any built-ins that may be present in the area. The knack is to make everything create the impression it was meant to be part of the grouping. Depending upon the location of your great room, this could include stair parts or newel post caps as well.
Kitchen and Bath. Think about smaller cast and wrought iron accents in these areas, such as the hinges, handles and knobs on your kitchen and bath cabinets. If you are employing metal trimmed baseboards or metal crown moulding, carry this through into the kitchen. Other decorator ideas using black metal might include a modern pot rack or a grouping of showy metal track lighting above the bathroom vanity or kitchen island.
Inside or outside, formal or casual wherever you decide to include wrought iron in your home will be an interior design triumph. It is a material that works well with all other materials, antique and modern, wood, plastic, or glass. It is an affordable and durable way to add character to an otherwise flat, new residential property.
Categories: Home Improvement Tags: architecture, Home Improvement, Interior Design
The Revival of the Classic American Front Porch
When you think about summer memories, many of us will think about blue skies, neverending summer days spent with friends and loved ones on the front porch – sipping ice cold beer and relaxing as the world go by. We all love to hold tight to our past, and those times and places in our lifetime that are very important to us; for many Americans, that includes massive front porch with its hospitable staircase, hand worn railing and battered spindles and newel posts.
Certain architectural home design styles would be nothing without the use of a front porch – Arts and Crafts, Georgian, the traditional wood clad farmstead and yes, even, the grand Victorian are a few of the most famous.
A porch must be big enough for at least a small group to gather on – that is the bare minimum definition. However, in America a front porch is often large enough for outdoor furniture, a porch swing and potted plants. A lot of porches are front and center under the main entrance, others span the entire front of the house, and still others wrap around 3 or 4 sides of the building.
No matter the design style or period it was built, a front porch has many common design and construction components. Any porch is made of up four main components:
1. Newel Posts – Box newels, over the post newels, and ornate newels. There are so many varieties of newel posts available if you are remodeling solid wood balusters on your old porch or building a new one. Oak and cherry wood newels are well liked because of the wood’s loveliness, natural beauty and durability.
2. Balusters – The balustrade are most often made of quality woods, but in more recent times have been replaced with cast iron or tempered glass. Solid wood porch decorative balusters still remain popular as they give that warm, familiar feel and can be very cost effective. A cast iron baluster in a decorative design can be attractive and interesting on a contemporary house.
3. Railings – Top and bottom hand rails are frequently made of solid wood. These are the components of your porch that regularly take the most ‘human’ abuse. You will touch the railings, hang flowering plants from them and paint them. Guests will lean against them and your children and grandchildren will sit on the railing tops. Railings need to be strong and hard wearing to ensure your porch lasts for decades.
4. Floor or Base – Fundamentally the section of your porch that handles the foot traffic, there are many new to the market options for a porch floor. older porches have wood or concrete floors and these options are still available today. There are also several new materials on the market such as non slip outdoor purposed granite that would also be aesthetically pleasing and hard wearing.
Although not listed in the list of four (4) above, porch stairs would be a close fifth. Not all porches, especially if the porch structure is constructed at the ground level or on a second floor off an upstairs sitting room, for example, will not have stairs. Otherwise, most traditional porches that lead to the front door of a house do include a small staircase.
Although the front porch did fall out of favor in house architecture after WWII, it is experiencing a marked comeback. Maybe this is because people want to return to a simpler time when it was okay to take time for yourself and those that you care about without having to race off to our work. Perhaps the front porch signifies a stronger family unit when families did things together – a less stressful time before video consoles, personal computers and blackberry smart phones.
Categories: Home Improvement Tags: architecture, home design, Home Improvement, remodeling
