waincoting

Scott was pulling some base boards off to recut the bamboo flooring that shrunk and pulled away from the wall.  So I asked if he wanted to put some wainscoting up while he was at it.  We looked up some tutorials and it seemed like a quick weekend project.  Not, so.  What you don't see in those tutorial is how much time it takes to fill in the holes and imperfections, sand after each step, and wait while coats dry.

This is what it looked like before.  What you can't see in the picture is how dirty the light beige carpet is.  It only took one kid to run up the stairs in his shoes and I had to scrub.  We decided the carpet had to go.        

This is what we found once we removed the carpet and pad.  We recruited the kids to pull the staples out.   

Then we realized that the wall side didn't have a base board.  Cutting a piece out to fit the shape of the stairs seemed impossible, so we removed the treads and the risers.  

The treads came out OK, but most of the risers broke in the process of being removed.  Scott cut out new raisers, trimmed the treads, and pulled all the nails out. Then he installed the base board and reinstalled the treads and raisers.  That took us until pretty late into the night.  We had to pull through. We were afraid if we left it in the state of the picture above, one of the kids might go through the sheet rock in the morning and end up in the basement.    

Scott used dry wall mud to cover the texture.  That took two coats and lots of sanding after each coat.  Then he built the frame.  

This is what it looks like now, after primer and two coats of paint.    

Next up: painting the treads in a espresso color and then installing a runner.