Stairway Transformation

When we were building the house, I loved the idea that the first and major thing you would see when you walked in our front door was our stairway. Not the messy living room or the cluttered kitchen. Not the dining table covered with mail and other junk. Nope..you'd see a stairway--something that inherently can't be THAT messy. What I didn't realize is how giant our entry wall would be. Sure, there's a small wall right in front of you, but behind it, there's a giant two story wall.

Like this. See?



Literally, this is exactly what you saw when you came in:



So I started envisioning. I looked on Pinterest and imagined that I would cover the wall with frames from floor to ceiling..sort of a la Young House Love. The other half nixed that quickly-"too much clutter". Why the hell do they have to have opinions??

So we decided together that some stair runner and some trim would help to make our case-help to cut up the space a little and make it more warm and inviting. I mentioned the stair runner a while ago. Well, this is what we picked:



And then we decided on some board and batten trim work on the wall to cut it up a bit:



Then, we compromised and did the photos on the wall. I got my different color frames and not all personal photos. And he got his "not all the way to the ceiling"...







And you know what? I love it! The stairs make me happy-and how often can you say that!?!

PS. I know you see our greenery in the last picture-but holiday decorating is a whole 'nother post!

Linking to Transformation Thursday at Shabby Creek