Before/After: Staircase

I'll build a stairway to Paradise

With a new step ev'ry day!

I'm gonna get there at any price;

Stand aside, I'm on my way!

- Gershwin

The theme of the staircase features prominently, metaphorically, or physically in song (this Gershwin tune has been going through my head), poetry, spiritual imagery, art, more art, architecture, and my summer rental! A stairway can symbolize hope, ascension, progress, or a journey, or it can simply be the means to walk to and from an upper story of the house.

The staircase between the first and second floors of my Summer Serenity Cottage gave me an early clue that my landlord is not a nice person, and showed me that sweet Jorji the cat has hidden talents as she navigates the stairs as gracefully as Georges Guétary in the Gershwin number I linked above. My staircase also turned out to be a perfect spot to re-use some of my collection of shopping bags as decor items, for a beach-cottage-near-a-resort-town feel!

I moved into a rental house this summer -- a "fixer" but with wonderful energy -- to escape awful noise and vibration at my regular place due to a faulty, flimsy, non-soundproof new roof, and to embrace a project of contemplation, relaxation, and decoration. My regular place felt right to me the moment I walked in, and so did this house.

When the landlord showed me the house, I remarked as we climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor that the turquoise color of the banister was pretty and would go perfectly with my decor ideas. He replied, "everyone likes it."

But when I moved into the house the next month, the landlord had painted the banister a gray-green color. Not only that, but the paint job was quite flawed -- and the landlord is a semi-retired housepainter. 

This surprise banister development didn't seem like the end of the world, but it stood out to me. Why did the owner of the house change what had I mentioned I liked? And why did he do an inexpert job of it? The banister was in need of repainting, but the entire house desperately needed repainting (and cleaning), inside and out, and he repainted no part of the house except for the banister, poorly and in a different color. 

If I were renting out a house, and the tenant said she liked something, I would leave it unchanged: don't mess with success. (I would also have the house cleaned and touched up before she moved in.) 

The landlord had no explanation, and I didn't worry about it. I told myself it was a small thing, though I did file it away in my mind, along with other comments and behaviors that seemed inappropriate, strange, or even lascivious, but that I let slide or didn't link together right away. 

Later, when the landlord's behavior became unignorably inappropriate and aggressive, I remembered this oddity, and others, and realized that this was absolutely not the type of person I would normally deal with. 

The house and I had positive energy together; you could even say we had mutual respect. The landlord and I did not. 

What I had now to deal with was a filthy and dilapidated staircase with layers of grime, scuff marks, handprints, and scars (like the rest of the house), and an odor of rotten wood and mildew (like some other parts of the house). 

A theme of the summer has been cleaning: the cleaning professional I hired said she cleaned the stairs, but, like the rest of the house, they were still dirty after she left. I believe she thought she cleaned them, but the house had what I would guess were at least 5 years of ground-in grime, and needed more than a light once-over with a mop. 

Mrs. Meyer's products to the rescue again!

One of my decor mottos this summer has been: decor and ignore. In other words: spruce up what can be spruced up with decor, and ignore what can't be.

Colorful shopping bags to the rescue! My decorating theme for the house has been Great Lakes beach cottage from the start. What if, I asked myself, my Great Lakes beach cottage were near a resort town with fun shopping options, in Golden Age style such that no money was required because the world ran on abundance and bonds of affection? 

I hung shopping bags -- with simple gold escutcheon pins (basic small nails) -- along the non-banister wall of the staircase from stores I would love to visit at such a resort town, for lighthearted and chic style that cost no money and that brightened the space.

What a fun re-use of these bags, some of which I have had for years. More photos are below in the After section!

Here are some additional before and after photos of the staircase; note that the "before" photos are really "ongoing" photos: I did my best to clean the stairs, but they remain marked, nicked, scarred, and scratched, the banister remains badly painted, and some of the grime on the walls and stairs would not come off. 

That said, do you see or feel too the charm that this house has? It felt to me like a Michigan beach cottage the moment I walked in, even though it is on the far north side of the city of Chicago, and to me it feels even more like a cottage after my decoration activities throughout!

Before

Here is the strangely and poorly re-painted banister, in an undesired gray-green, after I said I liked the turquoise shade it was painted in when I viewed the house. This is the kind of work the landlord, a semi-retired housepainter, does in a house he owns? Doesn't the house deserve better? And don't I?

The side porch is one of the spaces of the house I choose not to use, because it is rotten, and there was no time this summer to address every space so I chose strategically. The door to the side porch opens from the bottom of the staircase in such a way that the house could be a two-flat, with one occupant living upstairs and one downstairs, though I am renting the entire house.

Yesterday, two women came to look at the house because one was thinking of renting it. She opened the door to the side porch -- I told her she could but that I never did again after opening it once -- and she immediately understood why when she saw the ripped screen, fresh dead bug, spiders, dirt, peeling paint and rotten wood, and rotten porch and stairs leading down to the ground.

Side note: the landlord texted me earlier in the week to ask if potential renters, "two ladies," could come see the house, which was fine. We agreed upon a time, and I made it clear that the visitors were to come alone, because I do not want the landlord in the house again during the time of my lease. He has barged in more than enough already, and I had to put an end to that!

The women arrived half an hour early, which I didn't mind, with the landlord, which I did mind. I had heard the landlord laughing and joking with them outside. When they rang the doorbell and I opened the door, he glared at me with a hard and dirty look on his face, small eyes squinting at me under his blue baseball cap and above his bright orange t-shirt. I welcomed the two women inside, and started to close the door while the landlord was outside. The landlord said, can't I come in? No, I replied, you know our arrangement. At this point, the hard and dirty look on his face intensified, and he raised his voice at me, saying, you're moving out at the end of the month right? He has barked that at me so many times, it was ridiculous to hear it again. Yes, I replied with no patience whatsoever, I paid you for June, July, and August, and that's what a summer rental involves. Cause you gotta get out, he shouted, leaning on the doorway. No one is allowed in my life who is disrespectful -- or in my house, and it is my sweet house through the end of the month -- and I closed the door. 

Side note to the side note: beyond basic respect, where is the man's sense of customer service? I paid him 3 month's rent in June for the full lease upfront, with cashier's checks. You would think that this would be a landlord's dream, wouldn't you? But because I rejected his advances, asked him to stop coming over unannounced, and demanded that he never again come inside the house uninvited -- basically, because I wanted a standard arm's-length landlord-tenant relationship -- disrespect was his response, on top of the disrespct he showed from the start by engaging in disruptive and invasive behaviors as soon as I moved in, and rude behaviors even before I moved in? Absurd. 

Extension of the side note: the two women who came to look at the place were very nice; one was a younger woman considering moving in with a friend of hers who wasn't present, and the other was an older friend and mentor. I remembered when I first came to look at the house: a dear former student was in town for the day, and I brought her along so that we could continue chatting and catching up, and so that she could see the house too. Afterward, the landlord made a lascivious remark about my "friend," and implied that we were lesbian lovers. I was shocked: this young lady is like a daughter to me. Nothing about our interaction suggested anything but a warm professional friendship -- she calls me "Ms. Beck" -- and regardless of our relationship, why should this man -- who is old enough to be my father -- chuckle lewdly about any relationship between women? Did he also think the two women who visited were lesbians? Does he think that any woman with another woman is a lesbian? If he has male friends does that mean they're all gay? Why was I dealing with such a low-frequency individual?

Back to the staircase:

Here are the vintage locks -- one of which is operational -- on the door to the side porch which opens from the staircase, just off the kitchen. Below in the After section you'll see the new interior latch I had my handyman install after the landlord entered the house unannounced; he came in through a different door, but I fortified this door too.

After

The room you enter at the top of the stairs is the room I turned into a walk-in closet, which flows into the other upstairs rooms including my bedroom, and a post on Before/After: Walk-In Closet is coming soon -- think preppy summer tennis camp dream closet! : )

Jorji the cat has been absolutely beautiful about making the house into her home too. She has found cozy nooks, cool corners for hot humid days, and an unsuspected ability to navigate stairs! 

There aren't any stairs in our regular place, and I wasn't sure how Jorji would like stairs, or if she would choose just one floor or another and forgo the stairs, because as a British Shorthair, she is not a jumper by build or breed. But she took to the stairs almost right away, bounding up and down with no trouble whatsoever! 

Interestingly, she is naturally efficient with her athleticism, always using the inside lane, you might say; that is, she always goes up and down the right-hand side of the stairs, as that side takes the least amount of motion and maneuvering to move up. Cat fur piles up on that side, which I Swiffer away! : )

Going up -- in which Jorji is just about too fast for me to catch her with the camera:

Coming down -- time for breakfast in the Cat Room:

Jorji is aligned with Nature's Order: respect for the environment, knowledge of the environment, respect for herself, and mutual respect with me. 

Jorji is Nature; I am Nature; Golden Age -- paradise on Earth -- here we come!

Onward and upward!

Your friend in decorating,

Valerie

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Thank you!