Monday 13 April 2009

Wallpapered stairs


I was so impressed when I saw this makeover, that I just had to ask the owner if I could share her photos.

After having had an extortionate quote for carpeting the stairs, the owner of this London house, Helen, put on her thinking cap and proceeded to carefully cut out and wallpaper her stairs, armed with a roll of Orla Kiely wallpaper, white paint and varnish, and a lot of patience. I feel quite unwell at the thought of cutting the paper so precisely and lining all those stems up - plus, there were 40 stairs in total, and she wallpapered them all.

The whole transformation is very impressive, don't you think? I love the stripped floors and especially the grey front door (grey being the front-runner for my favourite paint colour of all time.) I'm not sure what happened to the old glass doors downstairs, but I'm glad to see they've moved on...

By the way, I'm having a flash of stair nostalgia - remember these mirrored stairs?

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh I love love love love it!!!!!

Lauren Maurer said...

Wow that is amazazing!!

Laura Trevey said...

How cute is that? Very creative :)

Arun Rahul said...

she should have got great patience...
Hats off to her work...

Jasmin said...

wow perfect!

Nikky said...

patience is the price but look at that payoff! fantastic!

RLMEnglish said...

Oh this is awesome. It gives me all sorts of ideas for wanting stairs in my house again. That is hard to achieve in a one-story but I can daydream now.

Slices of Beauty... said...

Beautiful transformation this is!

Patchwork Harmony said...

wow, what a transformation! love the door at the top of the stairs too! x

Blair Friedeman said...

Oh, wow! What a lovely transformation. Such a creative way to add a little color and can't go wrong with that lovely orla keily pattern.

avant garde design said...

wow, i have lately been seeing so many small uses for wallpaper and those stairs take the cake! wallpaper has definitely made a come back, and that link to those mirrored stairs! those are my favorite :)

Grace Albaugh said...

What an incredible transformation! How fantastic!

Magdalena said...

I LOVE this and must try this in my home!!!

Rachel said...

I love it! And I agree - the thought of how much patience it must have taken makes me a bit woozy.

paula said...

This looks amazing. If I ever have stairs I so know what to do now!

Unknown said...

wow, what a transformation!!!! very clever - loving the new look!
xox

marigirl said...

that woman deserves a medal!

Lee said...

Pretty swish, and so much nicer than boring old carpet!

Green Girl said...

wallpapers on stairs... smart idea! i like it=)

Catherine Jayne said...

The makeover is amazing! I've been thinking about ripping the carpet off my stairs and doing something decorative. Love the wallpaper idea!
~Cathy, LydiaLayne

2muchstuff said...

This looks gorgeous. I saw a similar, but simpler, makeover in an old magazine recently. Where the wallpaper is in these pics, the owner had painted a different colour in blues and reds and greens. It looked amazing, and different....

Unknown said...

I am most impressed with this Genius idea and the amount of patience to produce such a masterpiece!

Callie Grayson said...

completely amazing transformation.
I love the Orla Kiely wall paper!!!

Honora said...

Ooohh. So beautiful, bright and cheery! Thanks for sharing.