Stairway to Heaven (Well, Not Quite..)

Ok, so it's no Stairway to Heaven, but it is a stairway that leads to our upstairs, which is close, right? I shared in the last post that that our stairs were pretty ugly before. They were the same muddy brown color as our kitchen was, but sponge-painted and tan, too. (not my style) Not to mention, they were pretty old and beat up. So in the fall of 2011, we decided to paint them for a little mini makeover that ended up making a huge difference.

Here's how our stairway looked Before:

Not too pretty, right? It was kind of like a dark tunnel of tan and brown.

After we got our hands (and paint brushes) on it, here's where we ended up:

We painted the stairs semi-gloss white and chocolate brown. The trim is also semi-gloss white, and the walls are the same color as the living room: Glidden's "Water Chestnut."

I like it SOO much better! It feels so much brighter and cheerier - it's amazing what a little paint can do to a space.

Right at the top of the stairs is my office, which hopefully I'll have pictures of soon. We also painted in there, but still have lots of work to do. The future guest bedroom is also upstairs, in Trent's old bedroom. The whole upstairs is a small space that gets extremely cold in the winter, and extremely hot in the summer. So we don't spend a lot of time up there right now. But hopefully one day, I'll actually be able to spend time in my office without being really, really hot or really, really cold.

Oh, and the cheery yellow painting is from IKEA. I love it at the top of the stairs. The valance on the window is just one we got for free from one of Trent's coworkers a while back.

How about a little Before/After side-by-side comparison for good measure?

Ah, yes. Much better. :) Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Hallway Reno tomorrow!