'And Step On It'

For not being considered a room in the house, the stairwell sure does get a lot of traffic.

Think about your Sunday morning, otherwise known as “laundry day,” and all the tugging/pulling/falling of laundry on your trip to the basement.

You’ve decorated the walls with artwork or photographs. In the photographs, there’s mom, dad, sister and the always present Uncle Tom (even when he’s least welcome). But after the fourth or fifth trip, you’re probably not looking at Uncle Tom anymore. Your tired limbs have you staring at the mission – or steps, ahead.

You know what this means, right? Time for a home decorating project!

To make the trip up those stairs worth taking, how about adding bands of unexpected color to the risers?

Supplies you will need:

- Medium-grain sandpaper

- Painter’s tape or duct tape

- Wood primer

- Paint(s)

How to start:

1.Take medium-grain sandpaper and sand the surface of the riser you intend to paint.

2.Use painter’s tape or duct tape to tape the edges where the riser meets the step and the wall.

3.Remember to apply a coat of primer to the riser. If the wood is a dark finish, you might have to apply two coats. Let dry for 30 minutes.

4.After washing the brush, make sure to organize the paint colors before you start painting. If you are using a different color for each riser, the best idea is tape a color sample to each riser. This way you know which color to add on next.

5.Start from the top. Apply the desired paint color to each riser. Let dry for 30 minutes. Then, apply a second coat of paint.

6.Peel off the tape along the edges and you’re finished!

If you can’t settle on what colors to paint each riser, try using a color strip from a hardware store to provide the palette for this project.

Be creative! Some of the best stairwells (included in this post) applied just one bold band of color in the center of a flight of stairs. Another used stencils to create an indoor trellis of climbing ivy. And one stairwell had a number decal on each riser.

Come to think of it, the numbered steps might not be such a good idea – especially if you hope to survive “laundry Sundays.”

-S. Gonzalez

*Photos courtesy of www.tchochkes.com and rockybella.blogspot.com