Hey there, friends! It’s time for our One Week Challenge Week 5 update, which means next week is the BIG REVEAL! I am so grateful to Linda at Calling it Home for putting this all together, and am looking forward to seeing all of the designer reveals as well as the participant reveals. I think all things considered, I will be ready! Of course, I had to call the pros this week, but more on that at the end of this post. First I am going to tell you what I was able to accomplish sans help which is the DIY rope stair railing and the painted high stairwell walls.
By far, the rope stair railing is the most unique piece of this space.
If you recall, before we had a terrible old wooden railing that was mounted to a piece of wood that was “anchored” to the wall, but actually the top half was loose and coming off… safety hazard!
I am going to share the tutorial for the rope railing next week, because it will be a bit long and I didn’t want to try to squeeze it in with so much during this post. For now I will tell you that the rope is much heavier than you might imagine, and I was sweating my booty off as I installed it!
Coming in the tutorial, I will show you how I chose my bracket placement for secure mounting, how I cut the rope (MUCH harder than you might think!), and how I created my ends, which I wanted to be like oversized tassels. But for now, here are some cute puppies to tide you over. They’re super helpful.
They just like to be involved with whatever I might be doing.
(Still loving our entry light. You can read about it here.)
You may have also noticed that the tassels I ordered from Amazon arrived. I simply tied them together and draped them on the railing.
This past weekend, with Chris home, I got out our extension ladder so that I could paint the top part of the stairwell. I painted the rest of the walls a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn’t safely reach the highest points of the walls, as you can see here.
I set the ladder on the stairs at a slight angle leaning into the wall I was painting the top of. It worked well, and I was able to reach that wall perfectly, but when it came time for the sides, I could not reach. I couldn’t turn the ladder to face that direction, and I was nervous as it was on top of the ladder. Instead of problem solving, I did what any other woman at the current “time of the month” feeling the pressures of the ORC might have done… I yelled at Chris, “I do not need your help!” and stomped off and walked outside and cried and took a breather. Probably not my proudest ORC moment, but let’s keep it real, OK? Once I pulled myself together, I went into the garage and found a couple of long garden stakes and taped them together using packaging tape. I then taped my paint brush on the end and used that. A reader had commented that a paint brush on a pole worked for them, and by golly, it worked for me, too! This wall is not perfect, but it looks pretty darn good, and certainly much better than it was before. Hallelujah! No more almond walls! Cue the choir of angels!
Now the last update for this week is where I freaked out and decided to take Kenny Rogers’ advice, and know when to fold ’em. We are thrilled to have some amazing new doors from Metrie. I chose the true craft door for its simple style that can lend to both modern and vintage design.
Originally when planning this round of the ORC, I thought, I can do that! I can figure out how to hang a door and install new door knobs and it will be an amazing new life skill. Well, due to a dead car battery in the vehicle we had to use to pick up the doors, followed by the kids being off from school for a week, our pick up of the doors was delayed. We weren’t able to get them until last week, but I still thought perhaps we could try to do it. My neighbor trimmed them to the exact sizes we needed for our slightly off-norm door frames which was a huge help. From there, however, we were stuck and time was not on our side. Rather than fudge it up in a rush, I decided it was time to call in the professionals. My friend’s husband does contracting work, and is happy to take on side jobs, so he’ll be hanging the doors for me later this week, and installing the new doorknobs. Yes, we will be paying, and I’ve been trying to avoid spending a lot this year, but it needs to be done right. It will be worth it to me in the end!
As for the knobs going on, I ordered these simple Schlage Orbit knobs from Amazon because I loved their shape. Once the doors are in place, I’ll be painting them black, and I think these knobs will look smashing against that background.
That’s all for this week! I plan to have my rope railing tutorial ip for Monday or Tuesday, and I will be sure to link back to it in my final reveal post. Be sure to hop over to Calling It Home for the designer and linking participant updates this week.
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