Orange-ya Glad I Said "White Risers"?

At first our plan was to stain the entire staircase. When we realized what a pain it was to sand all the nooks and crannies, we decided to look into an alternative. While searching google for staircase images, I came across this little beauty. We loved the looks of white risers and the idea that it would bring a lot more light to our staircase which is sort of dismal. Let's face it, if there's one thing we're not going to turn down, it's a chance for a brighter/lighter area. We're surrounded by hulking whispering pines so even the natural sunlight is dim.

Back to the (stair)case at hand. Pretty much all the natural wood in the house was/is orange. unfortunately orange wood is the opposite of everything we have envisioned for our house so it all needs to be re-stained or painted. Our stairs were our biggest orange transformation project yet. I can't even begin to explain the tediousness of this project. All I can say is that I'm so thankful that these are our only stairs that needed a transformation treatment. Here they are before:





JC sanded his way down the stairs (literally) one step at a time.


Then he stained the treads and banister... Four coats of semi-gloss polyurethane later and they were looking slick as a whistle. Apparently I was MIA during this whole process because I don't have any pictures of it. So, here's a progress pic of some of the risers I primed when we first started - I stopped there because we decided to stain first.



We couldn't be happier with the results. The treads stained beautifully and I love how a little white paint can make things look crisp and new. Hard to believe they used to be orange:


There you have it folks, in the words of my husband... Badabing-badaboom.