"I don't want to go down there."
That's what one of Eli's buddies said on a recent play date to our house.
She stood at the top of the stairs to the basement, her eyes wide and her feet solidly planted.
Um. Okay. Time for another home update!
It is actually quite cheerful down there. The basement of our new house has windows along two walls, sunny colors, and is mostly finished (just lacking a drop ceiling in a few areas). The stairwell, however, was sponge-painted red, a color that seemed to suck out light to create a disorienting tunnel. There was nothing about that stairwell that led you to believe there was anything pleasant at the other end.
Here's the top of the stairs near the kitchen. It was dangerously hard to tell that there are two steps down to a landing. We also followed the previous owners' lead, storing brooms and such there.
The one good thing about that berry-red sponge paint was that it matched one of the colors in a lovely baby quilt a friend made for Eli before he was born. The quilt always hung over Eli's crib in California, but his bedroom here has less wall space. Thus I borrowed that quilt from Eli for a few years and designed the stairwell around it.
I picked an apricot yellow for the walls and used thick painter's tape to preserve two lines of the sponged red. The rosy hues harmonize with the quilt at the bottom of the stairway and add visual warmth yet also provide enough of a contrast that now you can safely tell where the floor drops down. Much brighter!
Our upstairs is mostly shades of green, so I hung two of my old art pieces that have greens but also yellows and rust shades. It gives the landing a little visual appeal and helps harmonize surrounding colors. (The companion pieces are torn paper collages with a motif of leaves, trees, scanned old handwritten documents, and mother-of-pearl buttons.)
Here is a before-and-after of heading down the stairwell...
For added visual interest since the ceiling is so high, I hung one of my favorite art pieces that hadn't yet found a spot in our new house. It is a line of pegs along a polished, undulating piece of wood that I found at an art show in Savannah. I hung it with ceramic and metal stars collected over the years. In my mind, it adds a touch of whimsy -- sort of a star harp that gently plays by itself in the slight breezes up the stairs. It also hides some scrapes and nail holes from the previous owners!
Here's a before-and-after of the stairway landing in the basement and coming back up.
At the top of the stairs I hung Brian's print from a piece artist Michel Delacroix created for the 1996 Centennial Olympics. (A little lower might have been better, but there were several holes that didn't patch smoothly and the print covers them.) The scene combines historic and modern aspects of Atlanta, so as history geeks we've always loved this piece of art. Unfortunately, the movers weren't careful with it and the glass broke. But yesterday I discovered you can buy sheet glass at Michael's (using a 40% off coupon) and they will cut it to size for free. Thus my whole stairway makeover cost less than $50. Woo hoo!
Now when I head down to the basement, I no longer feel like a corpuscle in a red artery. Eli no longer has to be coaxed into going down to his playroom and folks aren't constantly leaving the stairway lights on anymore because now the overhead light has a true effect. Why didn't I do this sooner?!
Hmmm. What else can I transform?
You are truly amazing!
Posted by: Norma McCoy | 27 March 2014 at 01:22 AM
Thanks, Norma!
Posted by: Valerie J. Frey | 30 March 2014 at 11:37 AM