This old house

Soooo....we're in a new house. Which to us means, a whole new building full of projects. ;) We love a good project around here, and this new house has ton of potential for all kinds of them. Enter the stairs. When we bought the house we knew that the carpet needed replaced. And in the way that I do (that I'm sure Todd loves...) I started searching for solutions not long after getting settled. We don't love carpet (dog + kids = dirty!) but I also knew I didn't want to spend money on wood floors quite yet. Sooooo...I might have pinterested a few thoughts....and I might have suggested we paint the stairs. How hard can it be, right? Here are the stairs before. Gross carpet. Pictures don't do the nastiness justice.

   

And here's what we found when we pulled the carpet off. Awesome surprise! Actual wood plank risers and treads, not plywood. This actually might be successful!

   

 Todd the handyman hard at work, sanding. And sanding. And...well you get the idea. Once we realized that the wood was in good condition, he really took care to try and refurbish it and get all the gunk off.

   

A quick pick of the landing before Todd did his handiwork. After further investigation we found out that these planks are under all the gross carpet upstairs. I hear potential, don't you? :)

   

 So after a whole lot of sanding and a little bit of paint and stain, here they are! We are super proud of them. Our temporary fix actually looks pretty good I think!