Those Stairs!

I tried a few babies ago to paint the front of the stairs to the apartment. Just kind of hit a crazy notion to paint them. And at the time I was going through a big Red, White and Blue faze. Not a bad faze to venture through but only if the project doesn't get finished. So I grabbed a few cans of paint out of the cupboard and started the every other stair look. (Mind you I was prego or just had a baby, can't remember. I was still pretty post pardom or just plagued with mommy brain.) I only got the four stairs done and didn't care for it. So I left it. Now, a few years later, post baby number 4 and I am starting to see an end of mommy brain, I am ready to tackle those stairs again.

Before:

Only this time I am ready to do it with something better and more classic looking. I can hand a flag or quilted something on the wall to celebrate our nations colors. I don't need to go too crazy and paint fixed objects in my home.

So I found this chocolate brown color and thought...perfect. So I sanded down the stairs and started painting. Two coats later and this is what we have:

Don't mind the orange snow fence along the railing. It is to keep the kids from falling. We will remove it when they get older. Nathan did such a great job building our stairs and railing that I hate to hide it. BUT Safety first! Always!

Updating Furniture

We had a table given to us that belonged to Nathan's grandmother. It has seen better days. It isn't the fanciest table and chairs and it has gone through some children already. Rough life. But it serves it's purpose. I was getting tired of the outdated look and thought it fun to update it. We haven't done many projects lately so I though this would be a chance to clean out the paint shelf and entertain myself for the afternoon. The table is actually laminate and Nathan says I can't paint it so I am stuck with just working with the chairs.

Here is the before of one of the chairs:

 Here it is work in progress: I took the pad off and decided I didn't want to replace it.

 The finished color. It is a matte Olive color. LOVE IT!

 Some still in the work in progress stage.

What I learned.
1.  My hand gets really tired pulling up those decrative tacks. A blunt flathead screwdriver will not do. Rethink ever using them anywhere in my live.
2. One can of spray paint only equals a few chairs--all incomplete. the can feels full and heavy but it only goes so far. I needed to finish a chair before moving onto another. Hence, the two black chairs I painted and the bace and legs of the table. (not pictured sorry) At least those two chairs have high chairs in them so no worries.
3. no matter what, my husband will always laugh at what I do. Not in a mean way. Just how random and silly I am about my projects. Just wait for my next post.
4. on a serious note: spraypaint furniture is so much better. I tried a brown on one chair to see if I liked it before I went to the green. It left brush strokes and grooves that I didn't like. Spraying from here on out!