When finishing up the layout plans for the first floor, I discovered that I could not use the Heartland Hollow inspired stairs I had wanted to replicate.  So, I had to figure out a way to make a straight, narrow staircase look interesting and perhaps a bit spooky.

I first took a page from the Newport book and added laser cut corners to the side of the stairs.  These are by Judy's Create-a-House purchased from miniatures.com.  The quality isn't bad, though they were not as uniform in design and thickness as other laser cut trims I've used.

I had to remove portions of the pieces to get them to fit together uniformly along the side of the stairs.

I think the result looks planned and natural.

I started with a base coat of Barn Red by Americana on the risers and treads.  This was mainly to keep any bare wood from showing through in the next step.  It looks creepy already!  Perhaps a bit too creepy.  :D

Since painting laser cut trims with a brush takes forever and I planned on making the whole thing black anyway, I taped the assembly to a board and sprayed it with Krylon flat black.  Interestingly, flat black ended up satin black, so no added sealer was necessary.

This left only minor touchups in smaller areas of the laser cut pieces to do with a brush and regular acrylic paint.  Much easier and faster with the sprayed based coat!

Here it is with Turquoise Gothic Stripe paper by The Paper Studio.  I think I'll use this paper in the foyer.

The area behind the stairs will be in the parlor and will be the deep glittery green paper by Recollections.

I'll add railings later and likely wallpaper the back side to match the parlor.  I wasn't sure about having such dark stairs, but I think they'll work wonderfully.