This Stairway IS Heaven

I just got my camera fixed and I am in the process of taking some "afters" to share with you, so this is "hot off the presses".....I took these last night, not that I was anxious or anything, ha!

This particular client's 1991 home has always had carpet on the stairs.  Though my client loved the carpet she was tired of it being on the staircase.  Truly it didn't bother me, but the staircase was feeling a little tired...I mean even though 1991 feels like just the other day to some of us, it was almost 20 years ago...Has that sunk it yet? ;)

A lot of people use the terminology incorrectly when discussing staircases so here is a little picture guide to help explain things a bit better as I go through the details of this job....

Back to the staircase....

We replaced the carpet with hardwoods, not just the tread but the riser as well.

Did you just notice that gorgeous hardwood border inlay on the floor as you were glancing at the above picture?  Well here it is up close....Isn't it beautiful?  We replaced all the oak hardwoods to these floors which is the color combo that inspired us for the staircase.

The open partial treads were the same tired yellowing oak as the banister so we darkened them up to match each other.  (Picture of the tired oak hardwoods)

Now look closely on the 2nd picture "going up", those partial risers are still white.  I don't think it looked bad with the balusters but it drove my client crazy because going downstairs they looked rich and beautiful but once you were down the stairs and looked up you saw "white", so we fixed them....Cue the faux painter....

(going down)

(going up)

...She painted them to look like the wood that we just stained the yellowing oak.  I love all the tricks faux painters have up their sleeves.

Because of the style of the home we decided on keeping the balusters as-is, well I mean with a fresh coat of white of course.  

So big improvement?  We think so.  This staircase has at least another 20 years in it.