Farm House Inspired Project

You may know I'm on a continual quest to change my modern new home into an old farm house and to live a farm girl style life here in suburban American. Here is one of our latest farm house inspired solutions to a modern day problem: nasty carpet on the steps.

We removed the warn carpet from the steps and ended up with this final look after going through several options that didn't work. My original idea was to stain the step and paint the riser. But after taking off the carpet a few things became clear: the wood was not stain quality; it was badly abused in the construction stage; and the edges of each step were painted white from when they sprayed the trim. So staining the step wasn't a possibility. But look at the bright side: the imperfections of the wood would go much farther in giving me the well-loved look of an old house.

So this became our final solution: we removed staples, scraped and sanded the rough edges. Next we did a quick base coat of dark stain. Steve caulked in the cracks and holes. Then he painted everything a creamy white color to match the trim in the rest of the house. I'm hoping that as the paint wears through to the dark under layer it'll give the look of old steps worn over time. Pleased with the result I added one final detail: I stenciled the numbers on each step using a homemade paper stencil from my favorite font that I printed on the computer.

It's just too fun! And it can easily be changed if (when) I'm ready for a change. The coolest part was this cost us nothing. We had the stain and paint and the time (2 days). And as usual I love this option more than running out and spending gobs of money on carpet and installation which just wasn't in the budget anyway. I love the way it feels on bare feet and how it sounds when little feet prance up and down them.