Everybody loves a dramatic before and after, right? Well, the stairs in our 200 year old farmhouse were looking very sad just a little while ago. The steps were carpeted at least 15 years ago, and said carpet was DISGUSTING! We would rake them with a dog-grooming comb to get the worst of the Golden Retriever hair off, then vacuum, but the carpet threads were hanging off and the stains were horrible. It was so bad I didn’t even take a picture! One evening when I was home alone I went at it and tore all the carpet off, plucked hundreds of staples out and pulled cracked plaster from the walls. It felt good to rip and tear, but when all was said and done, I had created a huge mess!

Now, not only did I have pretty bad looking stairs, but I also had gaping holes in the wall! “I’ll just plaster that,” I said naively to myself, having no idea how one does that kind of thing. I pulled out a how-to book and read about patching plaster, went to the hardware store and bought a big bag of plaster, and went to work. I have never worked with anything so frustrating before! I made a bucket-sized plaster rock on my first attempt, had to go buy another bag of plaster, then figured out that I had to mix small amounts at a time.

So, a couple of days later I had the plaster as good as it was going to get . Of course, now the stairs were also covered in plaster, and the hall and kitchen floor, the dog, etc… The next step was to paint the stairwell. Easier said than done. I managed to get all but the highest walls, which my husband managed to reach when he got home. Nobody saw the bucket, perched on the make-shift scaffolding that I used to stand on to get to those high spots. Good thing.

Next I painted the stairs themselves. This is the only stairway to the second floor in our house. All of our bedrooms, the TV room and my office are on the second and third floors. Rollie, the Golden, is used to free range too. So how to paint the stairs? Do every other one, lock the dog out, and hope the paint dries FAST! The second day I painted the alternate steps and put post-it notes in neon green on the painted, dry steps, so we’d all know what was wet paint and what wasn’t. Rollie was once again locked out.

So now the stairs were looking cleaned up and I could get to my original intent- canvas stair risers!

I cut pieces of #8 canvas an inch bigger on all dimensions than each individual riser and painted them  a tan background color. My plan has always been to show all of my horses I’ve had in my family since I was a little girl on these risers.

I drew ovals on each piece where my horse scenes would go, put a wash of gray over the tan to “antique” them a bit, then painted background skies, mountains, trees and fields on each piece. Searching though old pictures of my horses, I sketched out each horse then transferred them to the risers and painted each one. The one shown here is “Taurus”, a big thoroughbred I had for 20 years. He evented and did dressage and took me for long trail rides through the Vermont woods. He is buried here on our property. I miss him terribly. Each horse has a story and a personality and has had a big part in making me the horsewoman and artist I am today. The final touches were the blue checks, the leaves, the brick red ovals and three coats of poly.

Cove base adhesive worked really well to mount each piece. I measured and cut each one as I went along. Some stairs weren’t the same dimension as others, so I had to do them one at a time. Here’s the finished product. If you can make it to our Open House on October 3rd and 4th you can see this brand new addition to our home. (And you’ll probably have to listen to me tell you about each and every one of those beasts, sorry!)

On both Saturday, October 3rd and Sunday, October 4th I will be showing people how to stencil a floorcloth. Even if you never plan on making a floorcloth, this can be a useful skill to learn. Once you know the basics of stencilling, you can decorate all kinds of things- from walls to T-shirts to placemats!

This demonstration is FREE!

Please send me an email stating whether you will be here for the 12:00 demo on Saturday or Sunday. I need to know how many are coming so we can use the best space available.

This demo will be about a half hour long.

After fiddling around for an hour or so with the design I started yesterday, it has started to take on a mind of its own. I’m not convinced this is the direction I will use for the finished piece, but it’s getting closer.

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So then I slid it under the table in Photoshop, one of the best toys in my tool box:

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There’s still something bugging me about this design. I’ll work with it a little more tomorrow and see where it goes. Sometimes sleeping on it is all I need to get it right.