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Tuesday, December 22, 2015

tranquility sunset, please

I've heard that it's good to look at things - your job, your relationships, your home/work environment, your finances, etc. -  with "fresh eyes" every now and then.  We can get so stuck in the routine, we don't realize when things aren't going as they should.

Even when they're as hideous as this:


Remember?  Back when I was desperate to find a fix for China's trouble with the hardwood stairs?  I got these awful stair treads as purely a stop-gap measure until I could order some proper coverings?  I figured maybe a week or two, tops?

Well, fast forward to a few MONTHS, they were still here!  Yes, they were still ugly, but I think we all just got used to them, and they somehow became less ugly.  In our messed up minds anyway.  I had proper stair covers on my list of things to do, but they got buried under other things to do.

Now that the to-do list has become less cluttered, I took the "fresh eyes" approach, and thought, "Where did these hideous stairs come from?".  Then I ran screaming from the house.

In my return, we now have:


"Tranquility Sunset".  That's what the packaging says anyway.  Looks like beige to me.  Either way, it's a heckuva lot better than "Geriatric Swimming Pool Exit" that was before.  And the stairs are all warm and soft  now too.  I don't know what took me so long.

Even Magnum, who is not as picky about such things, thought those old treads were just awful.  He did note that their reflectivity came in handy during our recent power outage.  I don't necessarily see that as a good thing...  Even in the pitch darkness, they wouldn't go away.

And on that note, we've survived the longest night of the year.  In Tranquility.

.



8 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi :) thanks for visiting my blog,
I just finished having my kitchen renovated. Its only a minor alteration and I will blog about it soon.
Your stairs look better. But I don't mind having a glowing staircase anyday, hahaha!

Abby said...

When we first moved into this house, my thought was that the kitchen needed some renovation and I would get on it. That was nearly 12 years ago now and it's pretty much the same other than a newer fridge. *sigh*.
But at least the glowing stairs are gone!

ShadowRun300 said...

You did that yourself?! It looks terrific! Wonder if China appreciates the new, tranquil stairs.

Tee said...

Hey, those are AWESOME! Were you able to install them yourself? We have fully carpeted stairs, and as you can imagine, they get dirty and are hard to clean. Something more easily replaceable would be nice.

I've been looking at the main floor walls with fresh eyes for about two years now. Maybe this winter will be the one when a fresh coat of paint happens.

Abby said...

Oh yes, China's all, "look at me doing stairs like a youngster!"
It was actually pretty easy. They come pre-cut, so I just had to slap them in place, but I'm totally taking all the credit.

Abby said...

I found these at Home Depot, pre-cut and ready to go, so installation was easy. Probably the hardest part was, since they weren't totally flat after shipping, I put heavy books on top of them to help them lay flat. So I had to lug books around and then put the books back! Other than that, it just took a few minutes.

LL Cool Joe said...

They look good and I'm impressed you fitted them yourself. How do they stay on the stairs?

Abby said...

It's really not all that impressive. They come cut-to-size with an adhesive pad and are peel-and-stick.