I Am The Stair Master

I'm alittle disappointed that I don't have a before picture for this project but I still need to share. The night we closed on our house the first thing we did was start to rip out the carpet. I didn't think to take any pictures before doing so. I was just so excited! There weren't any MLS pictures of the stairs but I can atleast show you what it looked like from the living room view.

Here's what the room looked like after we took down those valances, painted the trim, and replaced the floor.

Now that was the easy part. The piece that has taken forever were the stairs. We chose laminate wood floors for the house because we didn't want to deal with the scratches that would result from our two dogs' nails. Problem is that laminate wood floors are basically impossible. So we got some oak treads and stained them to match as close as we could to the laminate. We picked a winner! Minwax Red Mahogany. Phew.

We replaced the railings with a fancy new one from Menards and stained that the same color. The problem was that it still seemed like something was missing. Then it hit me, stairs are supposed to have trim going down the sides. I believe they call it a skirt.

Problem is that these are put in BEFORE you put your stairs treads in. CRAP! Now what? Time to get creative. After some research on the web I came up with a solution. Faux stair skirt! Like this on Take The Side Street blog

I called my dad the come over and cut some pieces of trim, nailed them on and I colored (painted) the rest in. Ta da!

I couldn't be an happier! This is one of my most favorite projects so far. After almost two years our stairs are finally complete.