The First Finish It Friday is Finished (whoa)

Pardon the alliteration, but the first Finish It Friday is, in fact, finished!  The question is: did I finish the project?

As you will no doubt recall (of course, I can't remember what I had for breakfast, but maybe your memory is better than mine), this week's Finish It Friday project was our blah (yawn) front entryway.  Try not to fall asleep looking at it:

Beige, beige, and more beige, right?

The project was to repaint it.  I wanted to paint the walls a crisp white (they are already painted-over paneling - yuck).  Also, I planned to paint the banister's (missing in the picture) hardware oil-rubbed bronze, using spray paint (for a tutorial on this, see Young House Love's post here on how to do it).

Did I finish?  Can you stand the suspense???

Well, kind of.  Here's the finished project, so far:

OK, that picture doesn't really look like I did anything.  How about this one?

Aha!  You can see how great the crisp white looks with the blue above it (the blue is Valspar Signature "Morning Jog." I might have picked that color just because I loved the name.  Maybe.).

In this picture (below), you can really see the difference in the crisp white paint and the old beige paint still on the riser.

In the above picture, you can also see the hardware holding up the banister.  It was an ugly tarnished brass.  Now it's beautiful oil-rubbed bronze.  For the cost of deglosser and spray paint!  Wahoo!

From the pictures of the hallway, you can see that we have u-g-l-y carpet on the stairs.  To be fair, it probably started off - oh, 15 or 20 years ago - as very nice carpet.  Now it's just icky.  While I was on the stairs, I noticed (ok, really, I had noticed this months ago) that the carpet was not really tacked down on the landing anymore.  Given that, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to start removing the carpet.  Here's how far I got today:

The wood floor underneath the carpet is in perfect condition.  It's so much better than the dingy carpet, especially with the clean, new, bright paint.  The rest of the carpet comes off the stairs tomorrow.

So, that's how far I got today.  What did I finish?
     -     I painted the far wall of the entryway and part of the wall with the front door on it;
     -     I liquid-sanded and painted the banister hardware;
     -     Craig our fabulous contractor re-hung the banister.

What didn't I finish?
     -     I still need to paint the part of the wall under the stairs and the other two walls (which are quite
           small because they have big doorways on them).

And now, adding to this project, I need to pull out the rest of the carpet and paint the risers.
Lastly, I need to hang the wall art and photos on the wall with the banister.

I think Finish It Friday was a success, even if only a partial success.  Considering that I had to pick my kids up at 2:00 from school today and they were home all afternoon, I think I made some good progress.  I'll finish it this weekend, I hope.

Kitchen update:  countertops were supposed to come today, but they didn't.  Sigh.  They should be here Monday.  In the meantime, I've been given clearance to put stuff in the upper cabinets and in the drawers on the right side of the kitchen.  So, that's a weekend project, too.

What did you do on Finish It Friday?  What do you have planned for the weekend?  I'd love to hear about your projects.

As always, thank you for stopping by.