Stair and Hallway Renovation; Preparation, Part 2.

Welcome back to part 2 of the stair and hallway renovation! For part 1, click here.

Earlier in the week, in part 1, I left you all on a cliffhanger…

Did I manage to get the entire balustrade stripped? Was it worth the effort? Was it worth the 228 hours of manual labour? (seriously!!) Well, although I am nowhere near a hallway reveal yet, I am prepared to give y’all a sneak-peak of part of the finished product… but first, the rest of the destruction.

Stair and Hallway Renovation; The Vestibule

On entering the house, you first come in to a tiny vestibule area, roughly 110cm x 130cm. On the left is quite a nicely boxed-in electricity meter, and in front, a 1950’s glass door, complete with leafy textured glass. The door is surrounded by quite a deep original Victorian moulding, and capped off with quite a generous transom window (otherwise known as a fanlight). The flooring was a cheap, dark stained parquet, with an inlaid doormat. The inlaid doormat wasn’t my ideal situation, but one that I ended up having to retain. *sigh

Of the few certainties I had about the hallway, the flooring was the only one I knew for sure. I wanted tile in the vestibule and wood in the hallway. But I’m cheap, so it needed to be affordable.

Luckily, I’m also stupid, and had over-ordered for the living room. Schoolhouse Oak herringbone floor, it was then. And for the vestibule? These…

 Tiles from  Tons of Tiles

Sometimes, I ponder over things. Other times, it’s bought and paid for before you can say ‘You’re mine, Hexagon Harmony Tile’. Which is exactly what I did say.

Upstairs; The Magic Loft Cupboard.

This, is one of the quirky little highlights that sold this house for me. I love it. It was clearly built from an old chest of drawers, which has been ingeniously pimped up, to create the coolest wee staircase up to the loft. Every bit of space within has been utilized. It works fantastically as both stairs and storage. It looks total cobbled together, but THAT is what I love about it. Things don’t need to be perfect to be gorgeous or stylish…

Just look at me. (WAHEY!!! I jest).

Anyway, I set about stripping this beast down, with a plan to paint it. Luckily, this didn’t take too long, as unlike the stairs, it hadn’t had too many coats of paint! it turns out that in it’s time, the chest of drawers had been a pretty good piece of furniture. It has fancy inlay!

This in mind, my plans altered, and I decided to leave some of this gorgeous piece exposed. More to come on that…

But before I leave you hanging yet again, here’s the sneaky balustrade reveal as promised. Building up the drama, with a little recap;

Before.

Each baluster’s beautiful detail was lost beneath over a century of paint layers. Of course, even more of the detail has been lost due to my crappy blurred before photo. Sorry!!

No light task, it took around 6 hours per baluster (of which there are 32!) to get them back to the original cast-iron finish.

After.

After taking the balustrade right back to the iron, I realised that I would have preferred a slightly more even finish. A very light coat of matt black spray paint, has given the stairs a more uniform colour, whilst preventing the iron from rusting. Lightly buffing with fine wire wool, has brought out some of the raised detail.

Now, don’t think that you’ve just had a sneak peak of the finished hallway renovation. Nope! Those walls ain’t staying white! I have big plans… I’m just not 100% locked down on the details yet. That’ll be coming soon too.

Enjoy the rest of your week!