My Stairway Makeover - Painting A Stairway Tips
The Beginning
DIY Blogger Melissa Michaels of The Inspired Room tells Glidden® how she brought some character and personality to her new-construction home staircase.When we moved into our brand new home several years ago, one of my dreams was to give the stairway a makeover. Even though it was a new house, it was finished when we bought it, so all color and design decisions had been made by the builder. It’s fun to personalize your home, so this was a project I was really excited about taking on! My staircase project “before” included walls that were painted a shade of beige that glowed like mauve in certain light, the handrail was a light oak and the stairs were covered with carpet.
Painted stairway
The Road Ahead
My goal in this makeover was to give our stairway more personality and add some of the character of an older house to this new build. I really loved the inspiration pictures I saw with white railings and black handrails, so that was the direction we decided to go.It was hard to know where to begin since there were a few obstacles and challenges involved, but paint is always a great place to start. We began with the handrail since it was the easiest and most affordable portion of the project. I was itching to make progress on our home and wanted to start anywhere we could, even if it meant doing several projects over time. First we gave the handrail a light sanding* and a coat of primer, followed by two coats of black paint, like Glidden® Black Magic. It was tedious to get all the black lines of the handrail straight on the white posts, but I felt it really gave the railing the old house character I wanted. It was worth the extra time it took to paint it black! But once I saw the handrails black, it was clear I needed to take the plunge and get the walls painted too.
