Before

Part of the challenge of living in an old house — and ours is OLD (1810?) — is living with imperfection.  As it turns out, even I, (“Ms. Who-Needs-Right-Angles?”, otherwise known as “Ms. Dirt-Builds-Immunities”), have limits.  These stairs have been awful, awful, awful for years!

When D. was around 5, he and I ripped out the ugly red carpet that was here when we bought the place.  He was an aspiring workman at the time (and by the way, at that age, he could drive a nail better than most of our neighbors — no offense neighbors!), so it was great fun.  I painted the treads and risers.  That was 8 years ago and you can see how terrible they look!  In the meantime, ballisters broke.  One was pulled to serve as a model for a carpenter, who turned us some new ones, but they are in the closet UNDER the stairs because their profiles are not passing muster with my husband (who has a better architectural eye, but still?  Are the cavities better?!!)  I’ll spare you THAT digression!

I am cutting up a not-that-old-but-out-of-date National Geographic Atlas and using Liquitex Gloss to adhere them.  Wallpaper paste would probably be better, but there you have it!  Each riser requires two map sections.  So far only one seam bugs me and it is in the middle one above.