Our "Turning" Staircase

Have any of you ever sacrificed living or storage space for the sake of decorating? I did when we built our home in 1989/1990.

In my mind's eye, my dream home...the home where we'd raise our family...should be a two-story and have a "turning" staircase. It was important (to me) that there be enough bedrooms on one floor (bottom floor) for the master bedroom and both kids. Now mind you, we only had one child then...but my faith assured me that there WOULD be another! Finding a floor plan that suited both Jason and me that fit the bill in all these areas wasn't easy to find. We wanted three bedrooms downstairs and one upstairs.....most had either all upstairs or the master down and the others upstairs. And a few had all of them upstairs.

Well long story short...we found a one story house plan that had the layout we liked..but remember I wanted TWO stories...so with the help of our contractor, we designed an upstairs to our liking. However, there was a dilemma about the staircase. It would go straight up (no turning) in the foyer. Now that wasn't the way I envisioned our staircase, so after some re-evaluating, it was determined that if we wanted to trade some living and closet space in one of the bedrooms downstairs, I could have a "turning" staircase.

Why you ask, was a "turning" staircase that important? Well..it's because I could have a landing to decorate! I know you decorators understand that, right? So..Joy now has a smaller bedroom (than average) and an even smaller closet than most. Now she doesn't always appreciate that trade..she's just now to that age where she cares, and she has plans for Colt's bigger room when he moves out one day (hopefully a LONG time away). But, I think she loves to decorate that staircase too...she had it all decked out with her own crafted goodies including a giant paper chain for her birthday sleepover! :)

All of that said on the "history" of my staircase...I'd like to share the staircase landing decor with you. It has pretty much had an Americana decor to different degrees. It's especially fun at Christmas with a little tree there. I love my staircase still...I love the character and atmosphere that it adds to our home. I like the way it looks down onto our living room. NOW my mind's eye is seeing carpet gone and beautiful wood stairs with barn red in between each step! Well I figure I can dream for now...because that's where it starts!




The quilt (hanging over the railing) is an antique and my very favorite of all my quilts. It's from the 1890's.



I just noticed that Joy added the country blocks to this picture. They used to be in my kitchen (on my refrigerator) and when we got our new refrigerator, I took them down "looking" for another place for them. She went around trying places and it looks like she found one! lol! She just sat the stuff I had on the shelf directly on the blocks making it sit higher! Oh well! (I think she might be into decorating more than I thought!)


I found these I took this past Christmas:





Sometimes trading living space/closet space for decorating space/character/atmosphere is just worth it!