Moneypit Monday: Nautical Stairway Reveal

This weekend wasn't our usual house project weekend. As New England starts to awaken from its winter hibernation, so begins the photography season and boat building crunch. IE. Andrew and I worked all weekend.  No complaints here, it just means the house projects were put on hold. Except for one...the final "step" in finishing the staircase.

This staircase used to look like this...

Dirty cracked paint, worn treads, and old looking spindles. The stair treads were the easy part - a hard sanding starting with 60 grit and working our way to 220, then a coat of sealer and 4 coats of poly. Easy enough as we've already refinished the floors in 3 rooms and a hallway.

The moldings and risers on the other hand, a little more time consuming. In fact, we learned quickly that all the moldings, risers, and banister had never been primed. Just painted over with coat after coat, hence the cracking. So for two weeks after our 9 to 5's, Andrew and I poured a glass of something, put on some tunes, and scraped back the old paint, tread by tread. And then we continued to pour a glass of something for each and every "sanding party" for a week. Then came the fun part. Paint.

The spindles were the final step and also the most dreaded part of it all. Sanding down 15 spindles by hand with all the tiny details would not be a joyous occasion. Luckily a friend of mine sent me an idea from Pinterest at Completely-Coastal.com that was just our style. The decision was made and this is how it came out…

As you can guess, its probably not up to code, but we love it and are thrilled to have put our mark on another project in our fixer upper. 

What are some other creative staircase ideas out there???