Heavenly Stairway

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Sometimes I can be a real pain in the ass and my contractor Chris Hanley is king of "slow drip" technique - introducing ideas a little bit at a time - he is a very patient man.

When I first toured the house and eventually bought it, I fell in love with the staircase. It was very old and in desperate need of some attention, but it was graceful, lovely and most of it was original, so I was deeply attached to it.

Chris introduced the idea of redoing the stairs and I was adamant that we weren't going to do that. Then we took the wall down between the parlors, and we started to add the moldings and the copper ceiling in the powder room and suddenly the crooked staircase was losing some of it's appeal.

Chris bought one step and riser to show me how they worked. The best part was that we apply the new oak steps and risers over the old - so technically, I would be preserving the old staircase - kind of like hidden treasure.

I had to admit that they looked beautiful and as usual - you had me at "oak."

Check out the picture below to follow our process.

So Chris had been right all along — and I told him so. They look beautiful and they feel incredible. Now I have to convince him to do the next flight up to the third floor.

—Laurie