Before and After: A Fresh Coat of Paint

Painting a room is generally straight forward. Four walls, a roller, a brush, and a few hours and it's done. Of course if you're me, and you're painting a stairwell, things cannot be as straight forward as all of that. 

When we moved into the house, the walls were painted with flat cream paint that quickly became marred and dingy. Within months, the walls of the stairwell were gouged and stained and in need of a good painting. I'd patch and repaint, with the same flat paint, only to have to do it again months later. 

 

 It didn't take me long to start thinking about painting the space with better paint, however I found myself challenged by the extremely high ceiling over the stairs and my inability to use a ladder in that area.

 

some of the damage to the walls on the landing and stairwell

 I soon realized that only the lower portion of the wall needed constant repairing and so it would make a great deal of sense just to change the lower portion of the wall and not struggle to paint or improve the high ceiling over the stairs. While seeking solutions, I came up with many ideas (wainscoting, wallpaper, molding...) that were either to expensive or too difficult for me to execute all on my own. My beau is rather determined to make no home improvements and sees cosmetic changes as, well,  a waste, so I knew that whatever I did, I would need to do it without much help from him. 

 

So, seeing that I couldn't cut molding or wainscoting to the proper angles, or afford wallpaper, I went with paint. Now, with all the blue tape in the world, I cannot, for the life of me, make a nice solid straight line on a wall, and knowing this, I got a little creative.

Next project: do something different with what's hanging on this wall, especially the seahorses.

 

  

And, while it got the job done, and the paint is much more durable, I'm not sure I like what I've done. Sometimes I look at it and think I'd have much rather stenciled a design on the bottom of the wall, or really tried to make a clean crisp line. 

Other times a think a long, flowing wavy line would have been more appealing. One thing I do know is that, now that I'm less worried about the marred up wall, I'm more concerned about what I've got hanging on it.

Home decorating, for me, is much like putting together an outfit. Often times, while dressing, or planning a room, I can envision what a space or outfit will look like. 

Times when I cannot generate this mental picture, my outfit or room generally falls short; this is one of those times. 

I suppose though, the great thing about both paint and clothes is that they can be changed.

Happy Sailing

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