transformations: stairway and loft

Like I said, we’ll start upstairs. Or, at least, on the stairs. When we bought this house, the rail up the staircase was one of the most strikingly awful parts.

 
It was a wrought iron handrail, painted white and then spray-painted with gold polka dots. I mean, seriously?

 

If you had walked up those stairs four years ago, this is what you would have seen. Please note the carpet. The lines you see on it? They were odd, dark streaks of dirt on top of already filthy carpet, maybe in the seams (?). My guess is that the carpet had not been vacuumed in years. Literally. Maybe 12.

 

Standing on the other side of the loft and looking back at the stairs, you get another view of the railing. Still hideous. We had just taken down the box frames from around each of the windows. I can’t remember what one calls that “design element”, but they were awful. The light fixtures, as you can tell, weren’t much better.

 

One more, just so you have a full understanding of this “before”.

 

So, we got to work. Curtis tore out the iron railing and lugged it out of the house (with a lot of help). I removed the carpet and carpet pad, which literally disintegrated as I tried to pull it up. I am not exaggerating when I say that I had brown stuff in my nose for days from breathing in that stuff. Gross.

 

Cathy (Curtis’ mom) along with a few other family and friends, helped us with the massive amount of priming that had to be done to the walls and ceilings upstairs. Seriously- EVERY wall and ceiling in the whole house had to be primed and painted. Every one.

 

 
This shot was taken a few months later… we aren’t the quickest to finish a project. It often seemed like the work it took to make a space livable and decent was all that we had in us.  That, you will notice, is a theme in our family’s renovation technique. And not necessarily a good one. Anyway, you can see here that the railing is gone, the hardwoods have been refinished and a carpet rug put down.

 

Fast forward to 2009: the completed space.

 
The beautiful, heart pine staircase.

 

 
Check out that beautiful railing installed by Curtis!

 

The view from the top of the stairs.

One thing I love about the loft is its conglomeration of furniture. The couch and side table are from Curtis’ parents. We bought the armoire on craigslist for $30. Curtis nabbed the chair in college from friends who were throwing it out (what were they thinking??). The small bookcase was a freebie from an old job. The large bookcase, as seen in the next pic, was given to us as a part of the DIY show done in our garage. Much more on that later.

 

 
Looking towards Cooper’s room.

 

 
Standing at our bedroom door looking back towards the stairs. We debated long and hard, but eventually decided to replace the light fixtures. :)

 

 
Standing at Cooper’s door. Note the beautiful light coming through the windows. I always thought I would buy some roman shades or something, but I actually love the simplicity of the bare windows. And window treatments are expensive! :)

So… that’s the loft! Next: Cooper’s bedroom.