It’s been almost two months since my last update…and that’s embarrassing. But I have a somewhat good reason for being MIA. Sorta. Long story…longer…
When we bought our house, there were these gross red-maroon carpet things that were nailed to the treads and the risers on the stairs going to the laundry room. I disliked the carpet pieces so much, that I pulled them up one random day in May 2014. Pulled em up knowing the stairs would be just as ugly, if not more. But I didn’t care, they had to go. Then ‘to-do’ list got crazy thanks to the basement revamp (ahem, leak in the bulkhead) — the bastard leak in the kitchen sink, which if you remember required the laundry room to be completely pulled apart. If you need a refresher you can see the start of the laundry room saga here and here.
Fast forward to mid-April 2016 and I finally had the time and ability to get back to giving the stairs some love and attention. The BH nicely put up the dreaded plastic wall to keep dust from getting EVERYWHERE, I got all my tools together — i.e., sander – sandpaper of various grits – goggles – face mask – etc, and was ready to get my sand on. I jumped in head first with round one of sanding.
There was quite a bit of varnish (or lacquer, not sure which it was) on the stairs which translates to a SH!TTON of dust. Remember how I mentioned that face mask in my list of things I got ready? Well…I didn’t remember them when I started. So I got about 4-5 stairs all done with round one before noticing my face was naked. I immediately stopped once I realized I was skinny dipping in sanding dust and grabbed my mask.
But the damage was done. The dust was already in my bronchi irritating the sh!t out of them. Roughly two days later and with only one more round of sanding left, I felt the dreaded tightness in my chest. I was less than pleased — this was not only stopping my progress on the stairs, it was overtaking my birthday weekend. Subsequently knocking me completely out of the game for one full month. I was miserable dealing with bronchitis and one of my least favorite things. post. nasal. drip. gross gross gross gross.
So…fast forward again to mid-May, and I was finally able to get back to the stairs. I quickly got the final standing round done, got the treads conditioned and all set with three coats of the stain that can be found almost everywhere in the house. Then, I got all three coats of polyurethane applied and put the stairs out of commission for 7 days while they cured.
During those seven days, I went about figuring out exactly what I wanted to do with the treads. With the help of the BH, it was decided that we wanted to bring the cool cucumber paint color used throughout the laundry and basement bathroom. It helped I had at little less than half of a can of the stuff. Over two days I got all 12 riser pieces all painted and ready. The BH did the cutting for me, cause he’s awesome — and I was also tackling the great room. (another post, and it’ll be a doozie).
What you can’t see in the finished stairs photo below is the AWESOME support post that I took the rope off and painted with my newest favorite…Rustolem’s Hammered Copper. I’ll be sure to include that when I get around to posting about the laundry room…it’s about 90% finished. Just need to get the new flooring put in (cause that red-maroon crap just ain’t cutting it.) Don’t mind the books piled there, they were acting as support while the wood glue dried…
And voila, the stairs are so so so close to being done. Just need to add a small stopper where the bottom of the riser meets the top of the tread. They look great, don’t they?
The Yarn Cabinet 