Making the best of what you’ve got. Or, how our grim stairwell situation finally got a refresh!
If you haven’t see the before picture, let me tell you...this area has always been a hot mess-the treads, banister, first and second floors were all made from different types of wood - so zero cohesion and visually unappealing.
Add to that the absolutely janky picture frames I bought years ago to display favorite art and notes made by our kids. The frames were poorly made and slowly fell apart over the last 7 years. Sometimes falling off the wall in the middle of the night thank you very much. When we first moved in I didn’t have the budget (still don’t lol) for custom frames nor the mental bandwidth to figure out the most visually appealing and budget friendly way to display all the varying sizes of art using ready made frames so these were an ugly and cheap looking shortcut that I regretted every. single. day. But life is busy and I just ignored the situation.
Last issue was the forsaken handrail. Our beautiful snow shoe Siamese Goldberry took to climbing it regularly and in doing so stripped the finish and created a splinter wielding hazard for anyone trusting enough to use the banister for it’s intended purpose.
Goals: 1. eliminate the hazard of the splintered banister without spending $ on a new banister, 2. make atleast one of the wood tones disappear and 3. find a cohesive framing solution. Basically streamline the whole area! So, I sanded and painted the handrail, spindles and balustrade a shade of soft black (Benjamin Moore Black Beauty) and after much mental anguish figured out I could use a combo of 12x16 and 16x20 white frames from IKEA and 8x10 white frames from Amazon. Why mental anguish? The Ikea and Amazon frames are not exactly the same so they do not match and this BOTHERSMEVERYMUCH. The 12x16 and 16x20 Ikea frames that will accommodate the larger art inexplicably don’t come in 8x10 (WTF Ikea?! Why?!) Less rigid people said “no one will notice.” and “only you care.” If I EVER wanted to finish this project, non matching frames had to be accepted. FINE. IN ORDER TO BE DONE WITH THE MOST TEDIOUS PROJECT OF ALL TIME I WILL USE NON MATCHING FRAMES NBD.
Side note: After staring at these pics and this area for so long I have come to the conclusion that I cannot put off replacing that sad wall register for another second. Something a little more interesting coming soon…
Am I happy now? Not really. Okay, sort of. It’s not show stopping, it’s not really even beautiful, but it’s better. In an attempt to stay positive and not sink Into happyness draining/perfection/comparison/rabbit hole, here is what I like: how the frames disappear so the art pops, how the banister now has a uniform look that is classic and chic. The entire area is neutral and easy on the eyes creating a calm moment in my otherwise slightly eclectic and visually busy home.
More framing minutiae-I found white pre cut mattes with a 9x12 opening made to fit 12x16 frames which will allow me to create a custom framed look with my cheap AF store bought frames whenever I get around to doing that. Yay! (They are listed for $45.55 for a box of 50 right now-too much! I found a much cheaper open box option that were a fraction of that!) ! I also mounted some of the oddly sized art on old school construction paper while I was waiting for the mattes to be delivered and it ended up being cute so I may keep some like that too.
P.S. in case anyone wants even more detail on the tedium of painting 14 spindles and 1 baluster - it took 60 pieces of 3” painters tape placed 60 times (obvi) and a lot of internal dialogue where I repeatedly reminded myself that I would be glad I taped off 60+ times and that free handing this would only lead to tears and heart ache. Also thank goodness the base of each spindle was square and not round because there is no taping off curved things successfully in my world.