I laugh because this post was originally supposed to be about how we got a new stair runner, but of course, at the last minute, I had an idea that definitely complicated things - painting the stairs black AFTER the runner had already been installed!!

We have been in our home for almost 18 years and I always wavered on a stair runner. Our home is from 1940 and the floors are creaky to say the least! Finally I decided just to go for it and I am so happy I did! I partnered with my favorite rug company Boutique Rugs and found the Bonifay runner that was simple enough to go with the busy wallpaper we had done in the upstairs hallway, but still interesting enough to hide some dirt and please the eye! The idea was to buy separate runners that we could have a carpet company piece together to look like one custom stair runner. I didn’t price out what a custom runner would have been, but heard from many of quotes in the thousands ($3,000 to be exact).

Each Boutique Rugs runner measured 2’x8”. To figure out how many pieces we would need, we measured the height and depth of the stairs added that together and multiplied that number by how many stairs we had. We then added the length of the upstairs hallway and an extra 20% for waste. We came to the conclusion we needed 6 runners (total cost $750). We had some companies out for estimates and decided to go with a local company called Rudy’s Carpet and Flooring here in Fairfield, CT. The cost to do the 13 stairs, Hollywood style, with the runners was $250. It took them a few hours to complete the stairs. We talked about options for the upstairs hallway because it was more narrow than the stairs and decided the best, most cost effective option would be to have a runner just short of the entire hallway that was not tacked down, but just sat on top of a rug pad in place. The cost for cutting and re-serging the rug (making the edges neatly stitched), was $250. For this proceed, Rudy took the 3 remaining runners, worked on them and then delivered them back to us about a week later. So for a total of $1,250 we got what looked like a fully custom stair and hallway runner!

This is where this blog post should end, but of course, it’s NOT! I updated the collage frames of my kids to all black and felt like something was off.

I decided to paint our banister black to match the frames! I loved it, but something still wasn’t right to my eye. It wasn’t the runner, because I LOVED that new addition. No, it was the wood peeking through on either side of the runner. Our floor stain, all of a sudden, looked super orange to me. I think it was the lighting and the colors in the runner. It was bugging me and once we painted the banister black, that was it, I had a risky idea to paint the stairs black. If you know me, you know I’m not a huge risk taker. I like to change things up, but I fear really drastic changes and have trouble committing. This is the first time I had an urge and actually followed through with it. Truthfully this was a big moment for me in trusting myself. I’m not always good at that and can be rather hard on myself. This time I decided to listen to that inner voice that said just go for it. I’ll tell you what, I’m SO HAPPY I did! For both the banister and the stairs we used one quart of Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black in semi-gloss.