Bannister Revisited

You may remember the trials and tribulations of our first floor bannister.  Well, it was time to tackle the basement bannister and with limited funds, we had to revise our plan of replacing it to match the upstairs model.

Enter semi-gloss white paint.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, re-painting something old makes it look brand new.  It can take a tired, old bannister from this...

... to this:

Not too shabby.  :)

Ed tackled this puppy while I was in New York attending Toy Fair so it was an awesome surprise to come home to.  In addition to this guy, he also painted the hand rail attached to the wall just above:

The paint job really pulled the entire look of the space together as it mirrors all the beautiful white moldings throughout the basement.  It's all coming together!!

Out with the Old and in with the Newel

I have been dying to type that for days!! Woo Hoo!!

So we are doing a little project here at the Mangiaracina home and while we typically like to save the blog post until the project is 100% complete, we are just too excited to wait. 

We mentioned in a previous post that we will be starting a painting project and that is the truth.  It just hasn't started yet.  Before the paint gets slapped up on the walls, we needed to take care of something that has been bothering us since the day we moved into the house. 

The bannister. 

You are probably saying to yourself, that doesn't look so bad.  And it doesn't.  But if you were here and saw it in person, you would see that the construction is anything but good.  It is totally wobbly and the parts used are not solid or sturdy.  Plus it is not our style so it was time to go. 

Enter Doug Kidd.

This is the guy that has done some amazing stuff around our house including our windows and sliding doors, our front window bench, our pantry drawers and countless other projects.  We brought him in a few weeks ago to get an estimate on the bannister along with a few other small projects (more on them later!) and he called us during our 8 hour drive Monday to tell us he was ready to get started on Operation: Update Bannister.

We did our part of the mission - we ordered the beautiful solid red oak square newels for both the bottom and top of the stairs.  And in case you were wondering, the newel is the big base at the bottom of the bannister that keeps things secure. We learned a lot about the anatomy of a staircase during our newel search! 

Doug brought the rest of the parts and got started on transforming our space.  It was easy to pull the junky bannister down and we were happy to see that the parts were in fact screwed in and not glued to the walls and floor. 

After running a few errands, we came home to this:

Which soon became this:

And this:

The finished product is so gorgeous and it is not even painted/stained yet!!!

You may also notice that in addition to replacing the bannister newels and pickets on the upper and lower levels, we also added a handrail along the right wall to complete the function and look. 

Now that this sucker is in place it is time to get the painting party started!  Because of the size of the job and our recent lack of time to do anything other than chase James around, we decided to hire a painter. 

Enter John Montgomery. 

This guy has done many jobs at casa de Quartuccio and works closely with Doug so we are confident he is the right man for the job.  He will be painting the entire first floor (kitchen/hall/living room), the stairwell leading upstairs, the upstairs hallway, all of the ceilings, our master bedroom ceiling and James' bathroom.  Whew.  And I didn't even mention the outdoor job he is doing but that is another post for another time. 

We are still figuring out paint colors and will have some samples on the walls as early as next week.  We also are changing the light fixtures which we will share with everyone when they are all up and running.  Lots of stuff going on and all of it is exciting. We can't wait until it is all complete because we truly believe it will make our house look fresh and clean.  Stay tuned!!



The Newels Are Here! The Newels Are Here!

Perhaps not as historical as "The British are Coming", but no less exciting.  :)  We have a little project up our sleeves and a key component of it arrived today.  More details to follow as things get underway, but to wet your whistle, the project includes this:

(the newel - not Ed!) and some of this:

This is a project that we are PSYCHED about (shout out to you Ms. Emard Ratner!) and can't wait to share the details once they are ready.  Now its off to BM to get some sample cans!