Stairway to Heaven

Thanks to my husband's impulse, I was down on my hands and knees up until 60 minutes before our first guest arrived for Thanksgiving....

When I informed him I would be having our nasty carpets cleaned prior to our annual Halloween party, he tore out the carpet and started an unplanned home improvement marathon. There is very little time between Halloween and Thanksgiving so we had to make rush decisions on replacing it with wood floors. This would have been enough of a challenge, but since they were going to drop the price if we also had the stairs done, we added that on top of what was already an ambitious project.

I have been lusting after the stairs at Modello Designs since their creation. Melanie Royals has a big staircase in the studio with different patterns on each riser, created through her Modello Marquetry method. It's a technique she created that imitates wood inlay. Her staircase is jaw-droppingly beautiful and I have wanted to do my own staircase ever since. So I had the installers use unfinished maple on the risers to give me a blank canvas.

I chose two different Modello patterns and alternated them up the staircase. The patterns I chose are set up to use four different colored stains. It's more work but I have decided after looking at all of Melanie's floors that the more colors there are, the more beautiful they are. Go to her blog and check out her private office's floors....stunning.

These pictures show the progression of stains. It's so fun to watch it becoming more beautiful with each new color and layer removed.

It was a challenge, but I think it was totally worth it. It would have been nice to not be working on a deadline, but at least I made it. I pulled off all the tape one hour before our guests showed up. I will admit it was nice to finish a project and then have an instant public showing. At least it's done and now I can get back to my daughter's room.