A few weeks ago, I bit the bullet and came home with my trunk loaded of moulding from Lowe’s. It was a long weekend with plenty of time to figure this out. The worst that could happen was that I ended up returning anything I hadn’t cut. I was bolstered by a sense of confidence from several other blogs out that have shown their beautiful results with trims and moulding.
I’d been wanting to do this on our stairwell for a *long* time. It turns out kids are incapable of walking up the stairs without dragging their hands beside them. It’s just a fact of life. It led to a messy wall that was impossible to touchup with paint or clean. No matter what I did, the big expanse of wall was unsightly. The touchup paint never matched, and the worst part is that the stairwell wall is two stories tall.
It’s hard to get a sense of scale here, but the chair rail moulding is actually approximately 68″ high here. The first thing we did was cut the pieces and tape the moulding into place to make sure everything looked right. If I hadn’t fallen asleep so often in geometry class growing up, I probably could’ve figured out these angles up the stairs and skipped the dry fitting stage. The 45 degree angles were simple–but the angles going up the stairs were a bit trickier.
Once I felt good about the way everything looked, we nailed the moulding into place. Once the moulding was all permanently attached to the wall, we caulked around the edges & miters. Then we painted. I would say the most tedious part of the entire project was caulking and painting. We used semigloss paint to match the baseboards in the house. Semigloss finishes are always tricky for me to get the sheen just right.
Here’s how it looks all finished and painted up. Now, when the wall gets marked up (which it will), I can simply repaint the area below the chair rail without any trouble!
We did this job with a miter box only. I have to say it was not very difficult. I can’t imagine how much easier it would have been with a real tool.
There were several blog sources were so helpful in taking on this project. Check them out!
Oh wow - going down through the pictures, I did not expect the final pics to show all of the lower part of the wall painted white! I thought you would maybe paint the section inside the moulding a different color/shade of ‘cream/tan’? or something.
Congrats on getting it done yourself - this type of thing is beyond my abilities at present - I’d need to take a class!
January 19, 2010 @ 1:08 pmIt looks AWESOME! You did a fantastic job!! I love love love it!
January 19, 2010 @ 2:42 pmbeautiful!!! i didn’t do very well when it came to geometry either!
January 19, 2010 @ 4:36 pmI was intrigued when I read your comment over at nesting place…and now I MUST copy you! We’ve had the exact same problem with our 2 story stairway and it looks just atrocious. I absolutely adore the white moulding. Thank you so much!!
January 19, 2010 @ 6:53 pmYou did a FANTASTIC job!
January 19, 2010 @ 11:32 pmit looks fabulous! I’m thinking of doing this to my fireplace. I’m doing a fireplace/living room makeover.
January 19, 2010 @ 11:50 pmthanks for some inspiration!
gail
I love this! Moulding always makes a home feel elegant! You did a fantastic job!
January 20, 2010 @ 12:44 amBEAUTIFUL!!! I’m hoping to do this in my living room in the next few weeks! It’s just so lovely!
January 20, 2010 @ 2:52 amIt looks so wonderful! I want to do something like this, but our walls are heavily textured so I will have to use plywood over them. =(
January 20, 2010 @ 3:35 pmHow lovely! Thank you for the wonderful idea…as I’ve yet to restore my staircase and its not quite so high surrounding walls!
: )
Julie M.
January 20, 2010 @ 9:52 pmFabulous job!!! What a transformation. So glad The Devine Home could provide a little inspiration!
January 21, 2010 @ 12:30 amWith three kids, we are having the same problem. I love your solution! It looks beautiful!
January 21, 2010 @ 6:53 amEvery body admits that modern life seems to be not cheap, but people need money for various things and not every one earns enough cash. So to get good business loans or bank loan would be a proper way out.
March 3, 2010 @ 5:40 amVery pretty! I wanted to invite you over to meet Poor Pitiful Pearl, my slipcover I made…Hope to see you there! Meme
March 11, 2010 @ 8:08 pm