The Twilight Home
by
Heathered Nest
(IC: blogger)
$75
5 Days
Medium
Last year, we moved out of our urban, city-living comfort zone, and moved into, I'd have to say, a bit of a country twilight zone. We bought a home on a little land...a place where the kids could run, frolic, and enjoy the wonders of the great-out-of-doors. Problem was that the in-of-doors was a tad of an ugly-80's nightmare.
This was kinda ok, because I do love me some 80's. If I had to have picked a theme song for our pad it was probably that Golden Earring song...you know, "Help, I'm steppin' into the twilight zone..." Or possibly Guns n Roses' mega hit "Welcome to the jungle"...
This was kinda ok, because I do love me some 80's. If I had to have picked a theme song for our pad it was probably that Golden Earring song...you know, "Help, I'm steppin' into the twilight zone..." Or possibly Guns n Roses' mega hit "Welcome to the jungle"...
You don't get more classic 80's hair metal than that one, right?! To prove this home's 80s-ness, check out this totally gnarly, gag-me-to-the-max bathroom we had. Seriously. And if you're still not convinced of this time warp we were dealing with...check out the shower curtain we inherited when we bought "The Twilight Home".
DO YOU SEE THAT??? Our inherited bathroom curtain MATCHES Axl Rose's outfit!!! I moved into the 1980's...drop the mic.
In the words of that aforementioned 80's icon Axl Rose, this place was gonna bring us to our "sha na na na na na knees, knees"
So, we got to work. Oh, that's us...in our normal weekend leisure garb. Wish I was kidding. The masks? Those were to avoid inhaling the mold that we found while renovating the basement and stairs. Again, wish I was kidding.
Our first thought for the stairwell was that we would stain it to match the hardwoods in the rest of the house. The treads on these steps are pine. Pine isn't the easiest to stain. We gave it the ol' college try...you can see the result on a couple stairs in the picture above. Not good. Our buddy Axl Rose probably would have said "All we need is just a little patience". He's a very sage and wise fellow. And I wish that we were better with the whole "patience" skill. But we're not. So we moved on to plan B.
Plan B was paint. Paint and utility grade unfinished oak hardwood flooring for the landing (you won't believe the price tag...check out the blog post). Above is our work crew. And yes, that's their weekend garb. Pajamas. Listen, there's a reason I don't write a fashion and/or a parenting blog.
To save costs and time, we kept the existing handrails and gave them a DIY update.
And voila, no more 80's-ugly! We wrote a tutorial on how to paint stairs, if you're interested!
Now, I think she's a "total babe" as they said circa 1988.
We've done a lot of stairwells in our time. Funny thing is, this is one of the cheapest we've ever done (about $75 TOTAL), and despite the low price tag, the finished product is easily one of my favorites.
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Published February 18th, 2015 10:19 AM
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Linda on Jan 19, 2016Awesome Job! The mirror really lighten up the stair well. I can see your beauty of a daughter practicing coming down the stairs for her first date.
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