As an owner of an older house, please seal/varnish/clearcoat before painting. Signed, wants to return my banisters to their original wood someday, but likely badly paintstained.

That's a good idea. ALL of our wood floors need resealed, but that won't happen this year.

The steps, that can.

I am kinda in love with these wallpapers:

[link]

[link]

Erin, my vote is for gilding the risers and stencilling them.

Because that's what I did. [link]

(I'd actually vote for a crisp white on the risers with an accent stencil in color of the hall.)

oh pretty!

The only stairs I have are two, I think in the garage up to the now mud-room to the house. I may put polka dots on them.

Ooh, those are really pretty wallpapers, msbelle.

We have some FUGLY wallpaper in the upstairs hallway left over from the former owners. It's some seriously ralph-inducing 80's pink stuff. What's tragic is that under it, is a gorgeous blue paisley paper that I love.

I like the stencils a lot, Plei. I think I may paint the risers white, and do a stencil in a silver. If I could fine paisley, that would be awesome. D. loves paisley, and so do I.

People really like the stairs when they see them. They're a real crowd-pleaser. The best part is, the actual stencil part didn't take long at all. (The gilding took forever.)

Dear Loki, fuck you and the outdoor cry.

Went to water the plants, so very careful. He slipped.

Frantic wandering down and up the street, Loki at least responds to name, the shithead. Three doors down, waltzing like nothing. So need to chip him. Now SHUT UP, you've had an adventure!

OMG, Emmett is giving me whiplash and stomach-churn.

Let's play plus-minus with Emmett.

Plus: We're in the playoffs in baseball. Last night we played ten innings (three extra) fought hard, had a tremendous game and were suddenly down four when the game was called for darkness. We had to go back today to finish the bottom of our inning, and we had to score four runs to tie, five to win or we were out of the playoffs. Emmett won it with a walkoff-double.

Minus: You may remember the ordeal of the iSearch which (after much familial typing) he turned in and received an A+ on in his English class for his term. It's a huge chunk of his grade this term. He then proceeded to blow off four assignments and plummet his grade to a C+ when it should have been an easy A after the iSearch. I'm on him every day for four weeks to catch up on the missing assignments. He gets NONE of them done. Today I check School Loop tonight and he's missed ANOTHER assignment. Five missed in English alone. Then he booted a quiz getting 5 out of 14. AND I can see that he also failed to pick up the opportunity for two extra credits. Now he's getting a C- in English.

He's in deep fucking shit. But when I talked to him tonight I didn't say anything. Let him enjoy his walkoff. Because tomorrow he's turning his DS over to me for a lengthy computer game lockdown.

Fuck, I'm pissed. I've talked to him literally every day for the last month about this stuff, and instead of catching up he slacks off worse.

People really like the stairs when they see them. They're a real crowd-pleaser.

They are so gorgeous. I notice (and love) them all over again every time I see them.