How do you become the coolest Parents Ever

Well we really don't know how to become the coolest parents ever but we did have a sleepover with all our kids downstairs with movies all night. We brought four mattresses downstairs and set up beds for everyone (including Jamison) Our goal was not to become cool parents but to get the final coat of paint on the stairs(which needed 24 hours to dry, oil based is the best but takes forever to dry) So we packed up and moved downstairs for 24 hours. The kids LOVED it. They were bouncing around and wrestling all night. It was a rough night for Jamison but we got through it.


This picture was from the sleepover. They even wanted to do it again tonight!

So we still are not done with the stairs but the most time consuming and cumbersome part (the treads) are DONE!! Wohoo time to celebrate with a good nights sleep.

This is the only before picture I can find of the stairs but I swear I had one of the actual stairs and not a closet door. As you can see they were a beige carpet color with major dirtiness and smelliness going on.

And here is where we are right now:
We are going to paint the small parts on the stairway wall white. The stair risers are going to be bead board because well thats what we want. Obviously its still osb board with tons of beige paint speckles.

You may wonder why its all taking so long to finish these stairs. Well its because stairs are hard to do as they are the path between the sleeping/bathing area and the living/eating area in our house so everything has to be done in little steps and usually on weekends so we can convince the kids to stay in one area of the other. The other reason is beceause its the last house major project so you know how final projects go.

So we replaced all the treads as you saw in a previous post. Instead of nailing them in we screwed them it and put lots of wood glue on so there would be no sqeeking and so it would all be up to code. Daniel sunk all the screws and then put wooden dowels in to fill them. I had put two coats of Valspar oilbased floor and deck paint on the treads and let them set and treat for a month prior to installing them. Then I needed to touch up where the wooden dowels were and then we put a final coat of paint on all the installed stairs and here we are. It took so long because the goal was to make sure you couldn't see the screws or dowls or anything.

So here is a picture of the stairwell tonight:

We have a few more steps and then we are done with major house renovation things. Just in time for our backyard and spring.

Now onto that lovely nights sleep.

Miriam