6 Stairway Decor and Renovation Ideas

123homesfurnishings.com – In most homes, the stairway is the first thing that you see when you walk through the door and also somehow is one of the most overlooked things when designing or decorating a home.

Stairways are almost always unique spaces, and this can be accentuated through renovation (or even just decoration) ideas like incorporating your favorite patterns to express your style, adding decorative wood features and accents to amplify the charm in your stairway’s design, or creating a feature wall to take advantage of grand or hallway-style wall spaces that tend to accompany staircases. Offering high customizability and impact, your stairway renovations and decorations can be extremely fun and fulfilling when considered carefully!

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Add a Little (Or a Lot of) Color to Your Life

Often, we tone down our style to make our homes more copacetic, but there are plenty of areas in the home that welcome such personality. Stairways in particular are an area that not only welcome a burst of personality, but call for it by name. If you’re drawn to bold choices that you’d normally be justified in straying away from, this is your place to embrace them!

• Patterns are great for high-traffic areas where dirt is inevitable. Not only do patterns keep these areas looking clean, but fun and stylish, too.
• Colors that you love, no matter how bright or bold, will be usable in a space like a stairway. This is because colors tend to be less overpowering in a lesser capacity, and will amplify a small space like what’s featured in most stairways.

Consider Every Step

Every detail and step in the design process counts — including the steps themselves! There are quite a few pieces in the anatomy of a step, and it’s good to know what options exist for each.

• Treads — Whether you want the sturdy and sophisticated feel of solid wood supporting you, want to cushion your step with carpet, utilize a material like glass to allow the light in your home to flow more fluidly or want to dance up a stairway of painted color or a wallpapered pattern, there are endless ways to add intrigue to every tread.
• Risers — From paint colors or tiles that ooze your personal style, to removing them all together for a floating staircase look, the risers on (or not on) your stairs can make a major impact on the overall aesthetic.
• Stringers — These are great spaces for textures that will support the rest of your design, and serve as a way to create fluidity between your new design and the rest of your interior design choices.

Create a New Silhouette for Your Stairway

Newel posts, handrails, spindles and balusters can change the entire shape and silhouette of your stairway. It’s important to look at the various options individually to find what matches your style, but equally important is making sure to consider how they might work together.

• Utilizing stabilizer newels where handrails run long is recommended. These newel posts are generally larger and can in turn be more decorative, which opens a lot of design doors.
• Spindles and balusters are designed to keep larger objects (and people) from going under the handrail, getting stuck or getting seriously injured. These are a great spot to add personality through decorative pieces, color or even replacing these with modern glass sheets.
• Wall-mounted railings capped by standard newels can work with almost any preferences or needs, and taking the time to support your sturdy design with quality stair railing hardware can make your stairs feel as solid as they look.

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Stick the Landing

Your stairway’s landing likely has fairly limited floor space, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be limited in what you can do with it. A good size landing can double as an airy loft area, and depending on your needs, can be the perfect setting for a tiny office/workspace, studio, reading escape or an array of other nook size spaces or collapsible pieces. If your stairway’s landing is seriously on the small side, though, there are still some things that you can do here to make a huge difference.

• Try a unique feature item or accent piece such as a large vase or lantern placed in the corner of your landing.
• Consider greenery from hanging or sitting planters on the railings around your landing.
• Let a tall mirror stand or hang non-invasively to create an open and airy landing that feels less like a landing and more like floating.

Create a Feature Wall

A mindfully designed feature wall will add endless intrigue to any room and help you set the tone, as well as allow you to display things like your favorite colors, patterns, photos and more. With most stairways boasting either a grand backdrop wall or two hallway-style walls, you likely already have the perfect space for a feature (or double-feature) wall. This will undoubtedly be the most important wall in your home as far as impact, style and design go, so consider it carefully.

• Photo and print gallery walls are a common and forever-on-trend feature wall design. Suitable for any wall type, a perfect way to incorporate and blend all of your colors and styles, a chance to share and revisit your memories and so much more. It’s easy to see why the gallery wall is here to stay.
• A big pop of color will always be a show-stopper and make an impression, even on you every time you enter the room.
• Textured materials such as brick or certain wallpapers catch the eye and can pair incredibly with both old and new accent pieces and decorative fixtures.

Set the Scene with Lighting

Adding lighting to your stairway is not only going to make it much safer, but is a great way to add a clean touch of style to your space. Lighting can be a key feature on its own, or a beautiful accent — especially when carried throughout your entire home to create a fluid feel and aesthetic. There’s a lot to consider when deciding on how to light up your stairway, but a good place to start may be looking at options that complement your other design choices here.

• Decorative lighting — If you’ve chosen to create a feature wall, decorative lights can be the perfect finishing touch to accent the style.
• Step lighting — If you’ve chosen to put your focus on the steps of your staircase throughout the design process, you may want to consider highlighting them come night with options like pot lights or strip lights.
• Underglow lighting — If you’ve chosen to pursue a modern or clean shape for your staircase, an ambiance around or underneath it may be the perfect feature to accentuate that.

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Before You Begin Your Ascent

Your stairway not only greets you each time you enter your home, but acts as the first impression of your home for guests and is an important feature of your home in terms of both function and expression. With many intricate and overlooked features, taking the time to consider every detail of your stairway is crucial and can transform it from top to bottom.