Entrance Hallway Blues

It's hard to believe, but such a small pic reveals three pretty large problems. And when I say "three" I'm not even talking about that ugly sunflower rug. Fortunately, that rug went out with the rest of the staging furniture.

The first problem is the tiles. This photo shows a side view of the entrance hallway, but the tiles actually extend down the length of the hallway, into a bathroom on the right (if you were walking in the front door) and straight into the kitchen. The tiles look okay in this picture, but they actually were in much rougher shape in the kitchen. In fact, in a few spots, tiles had clearly been replaced as the previous owner attempted to match up the color, but apparently couldn't get an exact match, so there was a bit of variation.

The second problem is the white railings. As I've stated in an earlier post, Sandra and I both like to expose the original woodwork whenever possible. Here, its covered in several coats of paint. It's our hope that we can remove all of this paint and then refinish the original woodwork. Only time will tell how successful we can be at this particular task.

Finally, there's the stairs. Once again, we're encountering some dark stain where we would prefer a more natural color. We were able to remove the stain from the living and dining room floors and re-finish with a more natural look. We're hoping we can do the same with the stairs. It's something I've done in the past and been fairly successful with, so I'm going to see what I can do to restore these stairs. Looks like I've got to go get the belt sander.

Check back in the future. Hopefully I'll be able to give you a look at the progress soon. At the very least...there shouldn't be any sunflower rug.