For whatever reason, painting these dang steps was the longest process of anything we've done so far with the house. Maybe part of that is because it
seemed like it would be such an quick-n-easy DIY project.
They really needed it though. Two flights of stairs, originally painted a weird reddish color with gnarly white risers. Phil's mom sanded them all down, way back in January.
Here's how they looked after the first attempt--I had it in my head that we'd do a taupe-y light color on the risers and maybe a chocolate brown on the step. Not so much chocolate brown on the first go-round! More like an ashy grey-brown.
So we kind of, um gave up. For, like, 2 months they stayed half-way done. And everybody who came over was like "oh, I see you are painting the stairs!" and we were like "yeahhhh. we sure are."
That blue tape just hung out for a long time. You can see the snow out the window there.
Finally Phil had enough and we went to get a new color mixed--turns out stair/porch paint just is sort of weird when it comes to deep tones. It's difficult to get that glossy espresso color that I had my heart set on simply because of how the chemical properties in oil-based, high-traffic paints work with tints. But they eventually figured it out and it still looks this slick, even now that it's dry.
Gorgeous. I love. And no more blue tape.
They really needed it though. Two flights of stairs, originally painted a weird reddish color with gnarly white risers. Phil's mom sanded them all down, way back in January.
Here's how they looked after the first attempt--I had it in my head that we'd do a taupe-y light color on the risers and maybe a chocolate brown on the step. Not so much chocolate brown on the first go-round! More like an ashy grey-brown. 
So we kind of, um gave up. For, like, 2 months they stayed half-way done. And everybody who came over was like "oh, I see you are painting the stairs!" and we were like "yeahhhh. we sure are."
That blue tape just hung out for a long time. You can see the snow out the window there.
Finally Phil had enough and we went to get a new color mixed--turns out stair/porch paint just is sort of weird when it comes to deep tones. It's difficult to get that glossy espresso color that I had my heart set on simply because of how the chemical properties in oil-based, high-traffic paints work with tints. But they eventually figured it out and it still looks this slick, even now that it's dry.
Gorgeous. I love. And no more blue tape.
