I know most of you only come here for the quilting, so here's a snapshot of where I am with custom quilting my Deco bed quilt as of today:
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| The End is In Sight for Deco Stitch In the Ditch Quilting! |
Side note: I will NOT MISS those garish yellow walls in my Florida long arm studio!! At first I was living with them so as not to offend my father-in-law, but then once my long arm was set up in there the repainting took a back seat to other priorities. It is really difficult to get accurate quilt photos with such a vivid wall color as light reflects off the walls and casts yellow onto everything. Every photo taken in this space has needed to be color corrected with editing software. Here's what that photo looked like before editing:
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| Same Photo Before Editing to Correct Color |
See what I mean? And that is with white fluorescent lighting! My next studio is going to have nice NEUTRAL wall paint.
Okay, back to the quilt: I've done the interior ditch quilting in the top row of purple and blue log cabin blocks but tomorrow I'll need to back up a row and quilt the ditches around each of those green 1" square patches in the row above them. Do you see that canvas leader edge at the bottom of the photo? That is the very bottom edge of my quilt top pinned to that leader. When I get to the bottom I will still have to go back and do additional "To Be Determined" detail quilting in the pieced blocks, but at least I will be done with the tedious slog of ditch quilting.
Meanwhile, since quilting in the ditch with invisible thread for hundreds of hours makes for boring blog posts, I thought I'd share the first DIY "Honey Do" project in the new house.
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| Our Stair Railings Are Getting a Makeover! |
The "After" picture isn't really finished. It's an "In Progress" shot from yesterday afternoon, once Bernie had cut the new decorative balusters to size and swapped them out for the old ones. All of the plain straight "sticks" are still original and he hasn't glued any of the new balusters in or put the little accessory "shoes" on the bottoms of them yet. But I was excited to see the transformation and couldn't resist the drama of a Before and After when I realized I had a "Before" shot taken from the same angle.
Some of you who like to rain on other people's parades may say things like "I don't see any difference" or "why bother" or even -- gasp! -- tell me that you liked the old balusters better than the new ones. Allow me to explain why the old ones had to go:
1. The old decorative balusters reminded me of biohazard symbols:
2. The old decorative balusters reminded me of giant spiders:
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| Every Day is Halloween! |
3. Our home inspector had noted that one section of this railing along the upstairs hallway was loose and in need of repair anyway.
4. The old decorative balusters are the exact same style that was used in thousands of McMansion-type homes in the early 2000s that were meant to look vaguely Tuscan or Mediterranean, and I have seen them way too many times. If you have this baluster style in your own home and you like them, then you should keep them and enjoy them! But I am tired of looking at them. I think they are tawdry and would have preferred to replace them all with something more understated, like this:
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| What I Really Wanted To Do |
5. But alas! I could not swap out the fancy spider sticks for plainer sticks like these because of the BIGGEST reason why this project had to happen. Whoever measured and planned the original railing design when this house was first built is guilty of Piss Poor Planning and Sloppy Execution, and they did some goofy things with spacing on the angled stair railings but not on the straight horizontal runs of railing.
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| Much Wider Spacing of Biohazard Spider Balusters On the Stairs |
See what I mean? I couldn't just replace them all with plain straight balusters because of the wider spaced holes around the biohazard spiders. I would have had to replace the railings as well as the stair treads so that I could drill fresh holes and fit two plain sticks in place of every satanic spider stick. And no, I couldn't just swap out one spider stick for one plain stick because that would create too-large gaps between rails that a small child's head could get stuck in, violating building code requirements.
Bernie prefers decorative iron-look railings to plain ones anyway and it's his house too, so I set about finding a style that would work with the existing spacing yet solve the sloppy mess that I haven't even showed you yet:
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| Even Spacing of Balusters Along Straight Horizontal Run of Railing |
So although they increased the gap between plain and fancy balusters on the stairs, the railing that runs across the upstairs hall, that you see as soon as you walk in the front door and look up, does not have any additional space factored in for those 6 3/4" wide spider balusters. They are crammed between straight balusters that are spaced way too close together, sometimes barely touching, but several of them just don't fit at all and were wedged diagonally to MAKE them fit:
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| A 6 3/4 inch Baluster Crammed Into a 6 1/2 inch Space |
There is no way I could unsee that or unknow that it is there. To someone like me who routinely waxes poetic over the joys of ripping out stitches again and again until I get it right, this railing situation was as annoying and intolerable as walking around with a prickle ball inside my shoe. (Side note: my lower back is still airing its grievances over the hour and a half of stitch ripping I engaged in last week).
My challenge was to find two complementary decorative baluster styles, one to fit the wider space on the stair railings and another to fit in the tighter spaces of the upstairs hallway railing. I briefly considered just replacing the decorative balusters in the upstairs hall with plain twisted rods, but decided it would look weird to have decorative balusters in the stairwell but not in that railing section above the front door. Also, Bernie prefers a decorative railing and he would have been disappointed if that whole run of straight railing above the front door changed to a long row of straight sticks.
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| From Different Suppliers, But (I Think) the Same Manufacturer |
This is what I came up with. I acted on a hunch that the 5 3/16" wide X 24" high "French Scroll" baluster Style #9055SS (center of above photo) and the 6 3/4" wide x 16 1/2" high "Double Twist with Dragonfly" baluster Style #9057SS (at right in above photo) were from the same manufacturer and would have matching finishes, etc., even though I found them on different stair parts suppliers' web sites. The part numbers were so close and the diagrams with their measurements used the same fonts, and both were only available in Satin Black Powder Coat. I was delighted when the two orders came in and they did in fact look like two variations of the same style as I'd hoped. These are hollow stainless steel balusters that are factory finished to look like wrought iron, by the way, which makes them much more affordable and easier for a weekend warrior to DIY than you might expect. The satin black finish on the new decorative balusters looks much nicer in person and definitely did not match the super glossy painted finish on the old balusters, which is why we ended up having to replace all the plain twisted balusters as well. I chose new ones that are twisted almost all the way up the baluster shaft, whereas the old ones only had a 10" section near the middle that twisted.
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| So Much Better With Taller, Skinner Decorative Balusters! |
I am so much happier with the dimensions of these balusters!! Instead of being crammed in where they don't fit, there is breathing room. And I like that the decorative motif portion of these balusters is taller and fills more of the height of the railing, less like a stamped spider blob every so often across cage bars. Notice those thicker bottom trim pieces at the bottoms of my new balusters? They are called "baluster shoes" and I pleaded long and hard with my husband to get them. If this was a more modern staircase like this one, I would agree with him that there is no need for the baluster shoes and they interrupt the clean lines:
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| This Minimalist Railing System Looks Great With No Shoes |
However, there is nothing minimalist about our staircase. We have those thick turned oak newel posts with acorn tops and a lot of visual weight at the railings; I knew I needed the baluster shoes to balance that out with a little more weight and permanence where the balusters meet the stair treads. I also think the added detail of the baluster shoes lends itself to the older-house-character vibe that my husband has said again and again that he wants, and I think they look great.
My younger son Anders was helping his dad with this project. The baluster shoes just slip down over each rod as it's installed and then they are held in place and prevented from spinning by a set screw.
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| My Son, Anders, Enlisted to Install Baluster Shoes |
I gotta admit, I was nervous about whether mixing these two decorative baluster styles would look intentional and deliberate or weirder than the railings looked to begin with, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Note that installing that taller French scroll design on the stairs would have been impossible due to the height of the motif -- it would not have fit above the adjacent stair tread with the way the holes were drilled in the railings and the treads. I now have very similar spacing between decorative motifs and adjacent rails on all sections of the stairway, and a more understated finish that more closely emulates wrought iron instead of the hyper shiny gloss. Also, now that we changed something in the house, it makes it feel more like it's "ours."
Notice the pieces of tape in that photo above, too. Each one of the balusters going up the stairs needed to be cut to a different length. Bernie's solution to prevent miscuts was to tape and number each of the old balusters as he removed it, then transfer the tape to the new one as it cut it to the exact same length.
And now, instead of creepy gaudy "Tuscan" biohazard spiders, my stairs are decorated with swirly scroll designs that remind me of -- QUILTING DESIGNS! Oh my gosh, you guys -- IT'S REALLY ALL ABOUT QUILTING AFTER ALL! 😂😂😂. Everything is ALWAYS about the quilting!
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| Baluster-esque Quilt Block Design by Judi Madsen |
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| Baluster-esque E2E Quilting Design with Scrolls and Flowers |
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| Yet Another Baluster-esque E2E Quilting Design |
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| This One, Too! |
Hahaha. I swear, I didn't realize that until AFTER the new balusters were installed. I am not redecorating our house with quilting designs on purpose, and there will not be any feather wreath chandeliers!
Speaking of which, I did order a couple of new light fixtures to complete my mini staircase makeover. The ones that were in the house when we bought it are way too ornate, horribly dust catchers, and they have awful orangey finishes that go with nothing. They don't even match or coordinate with one another, two totally different "rust" and "aged bronze" finishes.
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| Over the Front Door |
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| In the Stairwell |
Those acanthus leaf details on both fixtures are impossible to dust, too. No matter what kind of feather duster on a stick you try to clean them with, the fluff or feathers from your duster get caught in the metal leaves and ripped off and stuck there, way up where you cannot reach to get them off!
Here's what I picked for above the front door:
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| For Above the Front Door |
And here's what I picked for the stairwell:
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| For the Stairwell |
So Bernie gets decorative railings (that look like quilting designs but SHH! don't tell him!) and I get simpler, more down-to-earth light fixtures. Both of these light fixtures are sourced from Visual Comfort, from the same collection, and they have the same Aged Iron finish that should be very similar to the satin black powder coat finish on my new stair balusters. They are supposedly in stock and should ship out tomorrow, but I won't count on it until I see tracking numbers from the shippers.
Obviously hanging these fixtures is going to be a challenge due to the ceiling heights and the stairs involved. Two options: Either I'll hire an electrician to do it or I'll get a quote from the electrician and Bernie will decide to rent scaffolding and do it himself. I'll keep you posted. By the way, we negotiated a better price with the builder for the basement remodel and pulled some things out of the scope that Bernie prefers to do himself. No "War of the Roses" in our future after all; whew!
Meanwhile, I keep plugging away at the horrible miserable awfulness of stitch in the ditch quilting so I can finish my Deco quilt, get it off the frame, and disassemble the long arm so it can be moved back to North Carolina!
My Stonefields project languishes sadly in my studio. My only stitching goal is to get at least an hour of Deco quilting in every day until it's finished. Second goal is to start packing my least-used sewing and craft supplies, things I won't need until after the move like garment interfacing, special fabric markers etc.
I'm linking up today's post with the following favorite linky parties, and I hope none of the party hostesses are mad at me for writing more about my stairs today than about my quilting!
MONDAY
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Monday Musings at Songbird Designs
TUESDAY
To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter
THURSDAY
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
FRIDAY
Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts
Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre
Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty
TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday
SUNDAY
Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué
Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts
Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework
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