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Painting the Entryway Stairway: $100 Room Challenge {Week 2}

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I believe that it is only after you have redecorated a room that you ask yourself, how did I ever live with it the way it was before? Of course this probably isn’t true for everyone, or every room. But in the case of my entryway stairway, that statement couldn’t be hitting closer to home with each swipe of my paint roller.

Welcome to week#2 and the painting phase of project entryway stairway makeover in the $100 Room Challenge.

In week#1 of the challenge, all of the participants showed off the room they want to update on a $100 budget.  There were a variety of rooms, decorating styles and creative ideas shared last week for getting more bang for your buck when you want to re-do a room while trying not to spend more than $100.

This week, we will all be sharing our first week of progress, and once again you will find a link-up of all the participants at the bottom of this post.

Covering the scraggly drywall edge

jagged-drywall-needs-repair

BEFORE

While I had spiffed up the walls of the entryway last spring, I did not paint them. And because we have so many other more important tasks to work on, I probably could have just left it for a while, but for that jagged piece of drywall that cried “this place looks like a dump,” every time I walked in the house.

Note: the wood going across the top threshold was not done correctly and will eventually be corrected, but until them, it does still show, even after the drywall repair.

jagged-drywall-cover-up-solution

AFTER

I asked Ken to cut a piece of wood from our wood pile that would fit over the drywall edge to cover it up until he gets to working on the basement, which is still a few years down the road.

In my opinion, with that one fairly easy upgrade, we now have a more finished look instead of the scraggly-drywall, “home owner was too lazy to finish a project” look.

Painting the entryway walls

The next step was painting the entryway walls and trim. To save a few dollars I used Dutch Boy Dura Clean tinted to Benjamin Moore color: White Sand. While I think that BM paint is better quality, I couldn’t justify the price for this area since it’s connected to the currently unfinished basement.

stairwell-entry-before-paint

Here is the entryway before the new paint.

painting-entryway-stairway-afterHere is the same space after.

I painted the trim and the drywall areas and the cement block walls all the way down to the basement floor. What do you think? Better?

Painting the stairs and adding a painted stair runner

When this house was built in 1948, this entryway was not closed in, but an open stairwell down to an exterior basement door.  This stairway is solid concrete and none too fancy.

back-porch-stoop-painted

Last fall I painted our porch stoop. That project is what made me want to carry the painting into the entry.

time-saving-tip-painting-stairs

I had plenty of leftover paint from the porch, so to paint the stair runner inside, I carried the same paint color into the entry and right down the stairs.

Find a time saving tip for painting stairs, HERE.

tip-painting-stair-runnerNext, I taped the stairs off to make a stair runner.

I followed a few tutorials on painting stair runners that I found online.

If there are 3 tips I can share from my own experience they would be:

  1. Apply the tape in 8″ to 10″ pieces at a time.  This makes it way easier to move a small piece of tape that is crooked and so forth, rather than having to pull up much longer pieces.  Less waste. Saves time. Saves frustration.
  2. Leave time for touch up painting.  While you hope that your paint won’t bleed through the tape, splash or smudge. And you hope that your lines are even enough to flow, I found that with a few touch ups here and there, the overall job looked better after the touch-ups.
  3. Finally, you don’t have to be an expert to tape off a stair runner. And the impact of a decorative stair runner stands our more than the small imperfections that you are worried will stick out like sore thumbs.

New painted stair runner

concrete-stairs-painted-runnerThere’s a small possibility I will change this up a little because I’m not sure if it looks too busy for the area, but I will show the full painted stair runner in the reveal, either way.

$100-room-challenge-entryway-stairwell

Ain’t it amazing what paint can do?

Cost and materials so far:

Piece of wood and nails for drywall repair —-$0.00 (We already had the materials)

Wall paint ——$20.86 (includes sales price and $2.58 rebate)

White paint for trim and stair runner— $0.00 (I already had the paint)

Floor paint tan —-$0.00 (I already had the paint)

Floor paint dark gray —$13.99 (Dutch Boy Porch and Paint – BM color: Iron Mountain)

Total to date:  —————-$ 34.85

week 1   week 2   week 3   week 4

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Scroll on down to see what all the others are up to in week#2 of the $100 Room Challenge —->

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Comments

  2. Too bad I can’t show a picture, but I did upgraded our kitchen with some paint on the kitchen
    cabinets. We both love the way our kitchen looks now. But I did do some research before I
    started. You can upload a picture on the Benjamin Moore web side. There is the option to
    change colours, to get a better idea which one to choose. Very helpful, as I was concerned when
    finished with painting it would look overloaded. Than I took cabinet doors off, spray painted the hinges
    and screws. Sanding is a MUST! One couple even primed the cabinets for three times (sanding in
    between those steps). I put one coat of primer on, but let the paint ALWAYS dry very good. After
    the one coat primer the paint came one, two coats in my case. The paint was from the local Home and Hardware Store and it is special for “Kitchen Cabinets”. It brightened the kitchen so much up. Lot of work as we have 24 cabinet doors, plus drawers. But it was worth it. Now I already plan to do some other painting projects in our house. Also would like to mention that you should compare prices, between the painting material. Chalk paint is very expensive and I would only recommend it for small projects.

    Reply

  3. paint is amazing ain’t it ha ha, i love your stair runner and especially the white stripe so that the stair is easier to see, the space looks awesome so far xx

    Reply

    • I’m not know for a steady hand, but the concrete stairs are so craggy and uneven, it probably only helps make it look more even, LOL. Thanks Maria!

      Reply

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