In the days before blogging, in case you are wondering, I didn’t make it a habit of just taking pictures of my home.

So, when it came to finding “before” pictures of our stairs and entry, well – you will have just take the ones that have cute kids in them.

You see, back in the day, these are the only reasons I would have taken a picture of my stairs – for the first day of dance class or getting all dressed up for a father daughter dance.

I spared you the pictures of me coming down the stair on Christmas morning in my glasses and puffy robe – we are just sticking with the cute kids!

So let’s skip ahead to now, where taking pictures of my home is a regular occurrence.

You see, there was nothing wrong with our staircase and railing. But I had dreams.

Dreams of an old farmhouse with lots of character and details.

And since our life right now (but hopefully someday!) doesn’t fit with living in a location that has an old farmhouse – we tried to bring in as many farmhouse type of details as we could.

And the light oak stairs and curved bottom railings just weren’t going to work.

So we freshened up the paint on the risers, stained the steps to match the floors and replaced the railings and newel post.

This is one of the decisions we struggled with.

It seemed so wasteful, you know, the idea of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? But, everyone told us it was cheaper and would be more structurally viable if we replaced the railings.

And I must admit, I am really glad we did. Looking down each morning as I come down the stairs, I feel like I have a glimmer of our someday country farmhouse.

And in case you are wondering, the amazing painting on the landing is by Jennifer Lanne. Her art, along with many other amazing artists, can be found at Earth Angels Studios.

Sharing at Home Stories A to Z

Thanks so much for reading!

April 04, 2013 — Laura Putnam