I am a firm believer that every older house in Pittsburgh has one of two odd features I haven’t seen in many other areas of the country:
1. The infamous Pittsburgh Bathroom™
2. The basement stairwell so packed with shelves and kitchen supplies that it is either an exciting obstacle course or a warning to avoid the angry stink bugs in the basement. (Phew, mouthful there) You can decide which it is.
Moving furniture into this house was fun. Narrow doorways are a feature I will never understand and one that I will rid this place of before I call it quits. This stairwell was plenty wide but impossible to use due to the additional obstacles. When I moved in I was tired of running into them, so they now lay in a large pit somewhere in PA. Strength shouldn’t have played a factor in the removal of wall fasteners, but a butterfly anchor laid claim to a baseball sized chunk of the wall. I decided that the shame wasn’t photo-worthy and patched it without anyone knowing (until now).
I decided to keep the Andy Warhol-esque Campbell’s soup storage shelf due to the tiny kitchen, but that too will one day go when the kitchen is remodeled. The stair railing will also eventually be swapped out with something that doesn’t pinch fingers and feel of depression-era ingenuity. I will be swapping out the inset wall on the lower right of the photo and don’t want to mount a railing twice.
When I was painting I admired the gobstopper qualities of this stairwell. I found the standard 50’s blues and 60’s greens, some 70’s gold, and a few hints of the past shelf color (black) all topped off with a way-too-light coat of the current off-white. Initially for bulk paint reasons I am painting the whole house a light warm grey and will later put in accent walls.
After patching and re-texturing, I painted the basement a clean white. The stair ceiling received the same flat white, and the walls given a coating of grey satin. I had re-finished the plaster-work that transitioned into the basement as it was beat up and quite ragged. The old edge is still half visible in the photo to the right. This will be transitioned nicely when the lower wall is replaced. It is amazing how some finishing work and a coat of paint can make a place look better than when it was built. As usual, more photos below!
