the up stairs

It's been over a month since my last post, and life is chugging, full steam, ahead.  Work at our now SOLD home has stopped and the packing of boxes has commenced.  But some new-to-you updates have happened since my last post, including the newly painted stair walls and carpeted stairs.

As soon as the basement stair update was completely done, my attention turned back to the "up" stairs.  I spent A LOT of time patching and sanding the walls along the stair.  The old plaster walls had a few cracks but mostly, a previous, poorly done paint job was the biggest culprit.  In addition to the expected dents and scratches typical of a heavily trafficked corridor, there were places where all manner of dust, hairs, and globs of dried paint had been painted over - yuck.  

I finally stopped patching and sanding several weeks ago and gave the walls a fresh coat of paint - the same White Truffle by Behr that I've used for the kitchen, dining room, and master bedroom.  I was so happy to see the yellow walls go!  The last room left with awful yellow walls is the living room, which will be painted in the coming weeks.

I moved the Case Study Planter to the landing.  It gets much better light here than in the far corner of the Dining Room where it was previously located.  I also finally hung my Mother's Day gift from Ella and Ted - a new locale print, this one of the entire state of Michigan by Belle & Union.

And the carpet just went in last Friday! I was hoping we could do a runner but I started to stress about the gaps in between the string board and the treads and risers.  The house is old and everything has settled, expanded, and contracted.  Our options, as I saw it, were to live with the gaps (wide enough to push plenty of cheerios through),  add additional quarter-round at each stair, or rebuild the stair all together.  With the latter not being such a practical option, we opted for the most cost effective route - to run the carpet the entire width of the stair.  Not at all what I would have preferred but it has been SO NICE having carpet back on the stairs.  I chose a light grey, low pile, wool loop carpet with hints of warm brown and cream to blend with the walls and wood trim.  The wool is so soft underfoot and I'm not longer worried about Ella slipping down the bare wood steps.  I was also ecstatic to say goodbye to the clicking of Henry's nails on the stairs announcing to everyone, even at 2am, that he still lives in this house (poor, neglected pooch).

The upstairs landing was also carpeted as it had previously been, up to the thresholds of each bedroom and the bathroom.  I hung Umbra's large clipper wall hooks up on the narrow strip of wall between bedroom doors to showcase some of Ella's artwork from school and home.  Since I like to keep my fridge uncluttered with things and because this house has a serious lack of wall space (there are so many windows), this seemed like the best place to show off her work.

Still on the touch-up list: to remove the white paint from the stair base trim at the top of the stair.  Oops!  I once had dreams of painting all of the trim in this house white.