Who Said You Had to Spend Tons of $$$ to Climb to The Top?!

When you're remodeling your home the amount of items that you keep adding to the list seems ...  a little DAUNTING!!! Even more than daunting you can watch the money pile grow BIGGER and BIGGER as you go down the list!  But I'm here to calm you and let you know that it's okay to work with what you've got.  Not everything has to be "new!"  When Kirby and I started making our priority DIY list we realized we were not going to be able to replace everything and so we decided to see what we had to work with in our home.  One of the projects that we prayed would be uncovered and make it to our "make it work" list was our stairs in our main room.  They had been covered with carpet for nearly 30 years! We prayed the wood that we would reveal would be something we could turn into a feature... and cheap!  When the first piece of carpet was ripped off I think I sang the hallelujah chorus!!!! There they were, good ole solid aged white pine.  

Don't get me wrong just because you can make something work doesn't mean it comes without its fair share of work!  However, these are the projects that are FUN because it's finishing work and work that starts to make your room feel like more than just a construction project and you start seeing your space come together.  

It only took him an evening to make all the amazing trim work to frame out the stairs.  So I was on to staining!  I chose to go with a stain that matched some of the wood he had used in the frame work and it matched great with the log walls too. A coat of stain and a smooth satin polyurethane finish and this project was officially tackled. The stairs now feel like they are part of the space.  They have charm, right down to the exposed nail heads on each stair, and the framing is almost a feature of its self.  Here is proof that you really can make something old, boring, and plain work for your space!

Now you are probably wondering, Okay how "cheap" was this project really?  Well depending on what you have around the house and how handy you are its almost mind blowing that this project could be FREE!!!!  The first thing we did was sand these planks.  I just used an electric palm sander to smooth out the surfaces an edges so that they were smooth to walk on. My handy husband (who I am thankful for everyday!) went to the barn and found some long strips of wood, got the table saw out, and started making the finishing work.