I can’t even tell you how much activity is going on around our house right now.
With Mike’s mom getting released from the hospital this week and new windows being installed, I decided to start a mini – makeover in our downstairs apartment! Needless to say we’ve been neck deep in non-stop activity around here.
I hope your May is shaping up to be everything you love about late spring my friends and thank you for taking time out of your busy day to visit me. I want to show you some pictures of our stair makeover if you have another minute!
When we moved into this house 5 years ago, this project was on the list but there were LOADS of other projects that needed our attention first. Finally, 5 years later, the dingy carpet is gone from our stairs…
I would really like to give you a tutorial but Mike wouldn’t agree to it. In his defense, there are a hundred tutorials already out there. They cover everything from easy budget friendly stair makeovers to more difficult and expensive makeovers and I’ll give you some links at the end of this post if you want to see the nuts and bolts of making over a staircase or building a newel post…
For our makeover, Mike decided to use oak to make wood stair covers to go over the plywood steps underneath the carpet…
He also decided to make the bottom step wider so he ripped that step out completely and rebuilt it…
The newel post is made of hardwood … with a little inset design on three sides…
We bought new spindles which are pretty simple in design…
Honestly, I wanted to simply sand and paint the pieces of wood that were already on the stairs and be done with it, but Mike had something different in mind…
After building the stairs, getting a new rail and spindles and building the newel post, the stair makeover cost about $1000.00…
But don’t let that number scare you off…you can totally do a more budget friendly makeover on your stairs…
Whether you go budget friendly or not, I really do recommend this project . Getting the carpet off of our stairs and adding a more substantial newel post, gives the entire living area a boost!
Have a great day my friends…if you have a minute, let’s hang out on Instagram...(I’ve got a picture of the new windows being installed – some of them are diamond grid and so much fun!)
If you want to do a stair makeover of your own here are some links that might help you decide how to move forward!
Classic Style House gives a great stair makeover tutorial
Remodelaholic has a fantastic tutorial for a stair makeover under $100!
Laminate Stair Renewal System- they do lots of the work for you!
And if you want to replace your newel post, Traci, over at Beneath My Heart has a detailed tutorial!
Looks so clean and wide open! I love Mike’s ideas~~~~
Looks great Robin! Mike is so talented. Is that his profession? Did you move the return air vent? And that picture frame above the stairs did he make that also? I love it!
Absolutely gorgeous. I love how it turned out.
Warning! It looks great Robin but be VERY CAREFUL ! Not only can you slip off these steps but you can also MISS the bottom step!! I know this from experience!!! So MAKE SURE everyone using this holds on to the rail ALL the way down! You see the bottom step blends in with the floor color!!
Looks great!! When we removed the carpet from our stairs years ago we could not believe how dirty it was!! Yikes! :O Glad to hear your mil is doing better. : )
That is so neat. What a great skill! I love the results, Robin. The new stairs look so classy.
I was so taken with the new post and look I didn’t even notice the carpet at first. I would be so thrilled to have a handy guy that I wouldn’t care at all about a tutorial either. Very nice.
Great job. It really stands out and looks crisp. Do your dogs do ok with no carpet? Enjoy !