I transformed my dated staircase in a weekend – this simple DIY transformed my whole hallway Even my teenage children gave it their seal of approval!
Even my teenage children gave it their seal of approval!
Screen printer Hannah Carvell is one of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts on colourful home design for a creative family to live in. See the rest of her articles here.
I finally took the plunge and gave our staircase a makeover. It's something I'd been thinking about for a while. We live in a cottage, so there is no sweeping staircase making a grand first impression. Ours is a simple, functional flight of stairs that leads directly into the living room. Perfectly practical, but over the years the varnished wood had taken on that familiar orange hue that never quite feels at home in an old cottage.
The irony is that I'm a complete sucker for aged pine. I spend far too much time admiring antique furniture with chipped paint, worn edges and decades of character. The more rugged the better. My staircase, however, felt a little too shiny and a little too new, so I decided it was time for a change.
I should point out that I had absolutely no formal plan. To my husband's eternal frustration, I am very much the sort of person who gets an idea and immediately starts a project, armed with little more than optimism and the question, "How hard can it be?".
My starting point was colour. I knew I wanted to introduce more of it into the house and I loved the idea of combining painted stairs with a striped runner. The challenge, as always, was achieving the look on a budget.
Because the staircase opens directly into our living room, I wanted it to feel connected to the rest of the house. The living room already features plenty of green and blue tones and, I'm planning a green colour-drenched scheme in the future, I decided this was the perfect opportunity to introduce a brighter blue instead. A striped runner featuring both green and blue felt like a simple way to tie the two spaces together.
The runner became my starting point. Anyone who has priced up stair runners will know they can be eye-wateringly expensive (not to mention adding in underlay and a professional to fit it for you), but Habitat has become one of my favourite places to browse for affordable homeware. I found a striped runner I loved for just £30 - I also really liked the Selby but at £75 (and I needed three) it wasn’t quite in my budget but the colours and quality deserve a mention.
Now, this was always going to be a DIY project rather than a professional installation, so instead of ordering a made-to-measure runner, I bought three matching runners and planned to piece them together myself. Even buying three at £30 kept the total comfortably under £100.
For the paint, I ordered several Rust-Oleum floor paint samples and was sorely tempted by a beautiful pale dusty blue shade called Nana's Best China. In the end, however, I decided that if I was going to paint the staircase, I might as well commit properly. Cornflower Blue won a fresh bright blue.
To finish the look, I ordered antique brass stair rods from Dunelm in the hope that they would elevate the whole project from one of my slightly mad decorating schemes to something a little more polished.
The process itself was surprisingly enjoyable. I gave the stairs a quick sand using an electric sander we already had in the shed, followed by an undercoat and two coats of Rustoleum Floor paint.
The paint went on beautifully, had very little odour and dried quickly (within the hour) enough that I wasn't fielding complaints from the rest of the family. It has a lovely powdery matt finish to it which I prefer to a gloss.
Installing the runner turned out to be my favourite part. Armed with a staple gun, I worked my way down the staircase securing each section in place.
I had wondered how I would disguise the joins between the three runners, but by positioning them beneath the stair treads they became almost invisible. After what felt like hundreds of staples, the runner was finally in place.
The antique brass stair rods were the finishing touch. They're not quite as snug as they would be with a professionally fitted runner and underlay, but visually they make all the difference. They add just enough detail to make the whole staircase feel less like a mad DIY project and more like a professional job.
What I love most is how much character the makeover has brought into a space that was previously easy to overlook. The staircase now feels like part of the house rather than simply a route between floors.
It's colourful, practical and infinitely more interesting than the orange varnished wood that was there before. Even my teenage children came home, looked at it and declared that it looked good. Honestly, I can't think of a higher compliment than that.
The entire project cost a fraction of what it would to bring in the professionals and took me a weekend to complete and has completely changed the feel of our hallway.
Not bad for one of those decorating ideas that started with no real plan at all.
