Elsie’s Stairway Makeover

I’m so excited to share our very first before/after reveal with you today! This post is sponsored by Kichler, who makes beautiful and affordable lighting that is also energy efficient.

In December, we closed on this home and the first thing we wanted to take care of was updating the flooring. The upstairs came with original hardwoods that we decided to match in the basement as well as the stairway, creating a pretty dramatic before and after (cue the dramatic music!).

Isn’t that SO MUCH BETTER??

Here’s a view looking down (sorry, the angle isn’t exactly the same but you get the idea!).

Let’s talk about the lighting first. As you can see in the photo above, the lighting was outdated and boring. Upgrading lighting is one of the simplest ways to update a home. In our case, we wanted to update the lighting to something new that was energy efficient, but also felt authentic to the mid-century style of our home. Throughout our entire home we will replace almost every single fixture over the next few years, and we’ll be careful to choose lighting that fits the era of our home, which was built in 1965. Here’s a before/after of the lighting—what a HUGE update!

We chose the Brettin LED vanity light. They don’t require bulbs, so you they will never burn out and need to be replaced, which is a huge win. They are so beautiful and modern, but with a nod to the 1960s, which inspires me! This same style comes with one, three and four lamps. They also come in polished nickel or matte black, but you know I LOVE gold and it’s all gold everything in my home. I am planning to use more of these in one of our bathrooms when we get to that phase of our remodel as well.

You’ll also notice we used our first color paint here! It’s no secret that I LOVE white walls (all the walls in our new home are Bit of Sugar by Behr, which is a nice **bright** white), but I wanted to use my first pop of color at the bottom of this stairway, and we chose Loveliest Leaves by PPG. I tested a lot of greens to find the perfect light pickle green for this spot. I’m hoping that we can use it in a few more spots throughout our home as we go!

The art print we used in this spot is by Jennifer Ament. I love this print and have moved it over and over to different spots in our old (and now new) homes.

Here’s our coat rack. It’s really cute—I’m going to use the larger version in our laundry room to store all our reusable bags.

At the top of the stairway is a print from our new ABM print shop (launching very soon!!!). At both the bottom and top of the stairs I added a basket. These are to store shoes since the bottom of the stairs is our garage access where we enter and exit as a family all the time.

We also added some hanging plants at the top of the stairs.

When we first purchased this home, I wanted to close off the wall here. But after really thinking it through, I didn’t want to lose the stone since it’s a fun ’60s feature. I wasn’t in love with it though. Then one day, the first week after we moved in, I woke up and visualized a row of hanging plants above the ledge. I immediately rushed out to find some plants (random memory, but this was also my last pre-pandemic normal shopping experience for a while … RIP). And I ordered some hanging planters (I’ll link them all below, a few were from a local shop).

Hanging planter links: Speckled set, macrame plant holder, ceramic planter.

Here’s a link to a similar rattan mirror.

*Note: Some of these had drainage holes on the bottom, which I covered with tape (inside and out) and left the plastic containers inside the hanging planters when they fit.

(I’m so happy we kept the stone!)

Thank you so much to Kichler for sponsoring this post! I’m so in love with our new lights.

If you have any questions about our stairway makeover, I’d love to answer them in the comments. It feels INCREDIBLE to be making some progress on our new space. Thank you so much for your love and support throughout our remodel. xx- Elsie

Credits//Author: Elsie Larson. Project Assistant: Collin DuPree. Photography: Amber Ulmer. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.