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Adding Moulding to Your Staircase – Decor Chick Guest Post

Today I want to welcome Emily from DecorChick! Isn’t she gorgeous! But, she’s not just attractive, she is brilliant! (And fun to hang with.)

decorechick picture

Why do I think she’s brilliant? Because she has one extra special, creative brain. Just look what she made out of a little lonely drawer!

drawer candle holder

I love her home and all the changes she’s made to it. Especially her staircase makeover! I’m jealous of her staircase because, I live in a two story home, and I spend A LOT of time going up and down the stairs. Every step I take on the stained carpet stairs with an ugly banister and spindles makes me long to live in Texas in Emily’s home. I have been wanting to give our staircase a makeover since we moved in. Sadly, I haven’t started it yet. But, I know when I do I will be more in love with my home because of it.

Emily has agreed to share her staircase moulding tutorial with you today. So, please give her a big welcoming hug.

Heeeeeeeeeeeres, Emily:

Hi everyone, I’m Emily from Decorchick. I’m so happy to be posting on Brittany’s blog today. I’ve always been a fan of Brittany and her blog, and I was fortunate and got to hang out with her at Blissdom and it was so much fun. Brittany is such a sweetheart, but I know you all know that already. 🙂

I finished a big project (with the help of my Dad) and transformed our staircase wall with lots of moulding. I couldn’t be happier with the results and I will be showing you the makeover today.

So, let’s take a look at the before photos.

staircase makeover before
staircase makeover

And now….the after!

staircase makeover after
staircase makeover after paneling

Ahhh, don’t you love wainscoting??

I was actually smart for once and painted the wall white before we added any boxes. I know, can you believe it? I actually followed my own advice. 🙂

staircase makeover painting

When you are trying to do wainscoting up a staircase, you are going to have odd angles and cuts. But this new little gadget my Dad introduced me to is so cool. You just set it on your angle, say for instance our staircase banister, and it tells you exactly what angle it’s sitting at.

staircase makeover tools
staircase makeover protractor

Pretty neat right? Oh, and those are my Dad’s hands. I don’t have man-hands and hairy wrists.

The angle of my staircase is 37 degrees, so the cuts were all made to compliment that.

For the moulding, I chose to use the foam stuff again. The pieces I bought were 7ft in length and cost $2.38 for each piece. I ended up buying 27 pieces. So that is $64.26 just for the moulding for the stair boxes.

First thing we did was cut all of the pieces for all 21 boxes.

staircase makeover supplies

Then we used this make-shift template so we could glue each piece together at the right angle, and on a flat surface.

staircase makeover angle cut

We glued 2 pieces at a time with hot glue, and let them cool.

Some pieces cooling…

staircase makeover glued pieces
staircase makeover resting supplies

And then we would glue a box together.

staircase makeover glued panels

And eventually got all of these.

staircase makeover finished panels

Then we put up the frames temporarily with double-sided tape to get the spacing correct, nailed them in with a nail gun, and added the chair rail. The rail is not an actual “chair rail” but is window casing trim. It is decorative like a chair rail and has a nice ledge to it.

staircase makeover panels installed
staircase makeover panel install

Then came a LOT of caulking and spackling of all of the boxes and chair rail, more painting, and then done! And please, if you need to cover nail holes, use spackle and not caulking. I already knew this but for some dumb reason I used caulk and ended up redoing it with spackle. Caulk does not sand well and it gets rubbery. With spackle, it sands down nicely and you can’t even see the holes. Just my little tip!

I’ll just show you all more after photos because I know that’s what you really care about. 🙂

staircase makeover finished
staircase makeover painted
staircase makeover decor
staircase makeover finished decor
staircase makeover panel closeup
staircase makeover finished diy project
staircase makeover project
staircase makeover diy

And here are a couple of night shots. P.S.- the sconces have flameless candles in them and they are on a timer, so they come on at the same time every day and stay on for 5 hours and turn off.

staircase makeover candles
staircase makeover candle decor
staircase makeover lighting
staircase makeover light decor
staircase makeover evening decor
staircase makeover

So what do you think? I think this is one of, if not, my favorite transformation so far. I think I always say that though. 🙂 This wall was always a challenge to decorate, so that’s why it’s been empty for 2 years now. I think having the wall more as an architectural feature was the way to go.

To see how the design of the staircase came about, you can read about that here. To see a more detailed how-to of the moulding boxes you can read that here.

Source list:

  • Starburst Mirror – Pier 1 for $69 (was on sale over half off! The original price was $149)
  • Candle Sconces – Hobby Lobby $30 each (with half off)
  • Flameless candles – Pier 1. I already had these candles but had to buy one more for about $14. Pier 1 flameless candles are my favorite because they glow from the bottom up, instead of just the top like a lot of others do.

Materials – $64.26 for moulding boxes, and approximately $20 for the chair rail.

Wall color – Baguette from Sherwin Williams — (But it’s soon changing to a different color)

I hope you enjoyed my staircase makeover, and thank you so much for having me Brittany!

Thanks Emily! I appreciate that you shared your tutorial with us. What do you guys think? Pretty fab, huh?! Well, you haven’t seen nothin’ yet.

Checkout her fabulous pantry! Seriously, I love her pantry (and her Dad who helped her build the custom carousels for her pantry. DecorChick Dad, can you adopt me please!!!)

See for yourself:

diy pantry makeover project
Pantry Makeover HERE.

I hope you will hop over to her blog and tell her I sent you. Enjoy your visit!

Stay tuned, we have a few more guest posters helping me with “Falling in Love with Your Home” February!

22 replies
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  1. Stacey J.
    Stacey J. says:

    I hope you’re still responding to this post because this is exactly what I am doing and hoping I can get your help! I am currently putting trim up my stairs and having the hardest time with cutting the end of the chair rail…in your very last picture…you show where the end of your chair rail dead ends to your molding for your doorway…you have one cuts there on an angle and one for the piece that dead ends to the molding…how did you figure out that angle? That is driving me crazy right now!!! Your trim is awesome looking BTW!

    Reply
  2. Marie
    Marie says:

    Hello,i love it your project……… question do you use 37 degree angel as well? how did you cut the all moldings into that angle,,,,,,, thanks for your help,i will really appreciated

    Reply
    • Brittany Bailey
      Brittany Bailey says:

      Marie, you should check your own staircase angle using the tool that was shown setting on the railing. Then you’ll want to use a miter saw set at that angle to cut your molding.

      Reply

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  1. […] Adding Moulding to Your Staircase – Decor Chick Guest PostAdding Moulding to Your Staircase – Decor Chick Guest Post. 18 Feb posted by Brittany (aka Pretty Handy Girl). Today I want to welcome Emily from DecorChick … […]

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