I realize this is far from the most glamorous makeover I’ve ever posted, but it is a huge improvement for my basement stairwell, the gateway to my studio, aka The Dungeon. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit, but I had never touched this stairwell in the 20+ years I have lived here, safe to sweep the stairs occasionally. I thought I had taken at least one "before" pic, but now cannot locate, so you will just have to take my word for it, that it was truly dark and dingy.
I had a zero budget for this project, so started by mixing a few left over paints together to make a peachy/light orange color. The walls and slanted ceiling are in very bad condition, so I did the best I could with the prep work and joint compound. I applied 2 coats of this paint to walls and ceiling. I had all of these hooks and storage units already, so just cleaned them up and rehung in new locations.
As you can see, only the top portion of the walls are actual walls to paint. The bottom half is stone block from our foundation on the right, and some miscellaneous wood slats on the left. I decided to keep this rustic look and not try to glamorize in any way. The ceiling is stenciled with my new favorite stencil from Royal Design Studio, the Large Endless Moorish Circles. I used this previously for my dining room Roman Shades and am currently stenciling some drapes for my living room with it.
Here’s a closer look.
I did find one "before" pic, of my sad door. I had a cat door here before, and since I no longer have cats and have no intention of acquiring any soon, I decided to remove and board up.
Painting it all Linen White definitely helped to lighten things up in this dark space!
I’ve had this Two Bad Ants poster in my basement for years. My daughter has always been petrified of ants, so her Uncle Chris gave her this book and poster as a child to try to ease her fear a bit. She is STILL petrified of ants and did not want this poster in her own home, so I decided to hang it here.
It’s a very clever book and the illustrations are great!
Lastly, I painted the stairs with some left over floor paint and added the numbers for a little interest.
I should have done this years ago, because it is so much cheerier going up and down these stairs now to my studio and to do laundry!
Loving this Carol. Now I will have something really stunning to look at when I fall down. You are so clever.
Carol, you are inspiring me to do something with my ugly stairs too. Although the LL says he is ripping them out and redoing on the other side, I don’t think he is in the same time zone I am!! 😉 I have nice walls all the way down so could paint something nice — it is sort of a vanilla cream color now (same color that I slapped on the ugly storage/studio room walls. The stairs are what I want to do… thinking of using my leftover Stain and Seal to just make them look like the dark walnut upstairs floors with the risers painted in a bright teal blue. I did change my 40w bulbs for 200w and that made a HUGE difference in the dark and dungeony feel…. love your stairs…. I hung some of Megan’s college art projects on the walls to liven them up….
I great improvement, good job!!!!