Side Quest 01 — In progress

The staircase that had no style

SEP 2026 · HOME RESTORATION

Staircase wall repairs being smoothed out, ready for paint — THE STARTING POINT — patched walls, scuffed and smoothed, ready for paint. This 90s stair never had any style.

Every workshop has a main quest — for MechSmith, that's Bobby. But the shop also has to earn its keep around the house, and this staircase was begging for attention: a 1990s build with no style whatsoever, tired walls, and trim wearing roughly forty-five coats of crystallized honey-glaze shellac.

So it became Side Quest 01 — and the first project in the Indrustic Craftsman design language: industrial meets wood meets craftsman meets modern.

Walls first: patch, sand, paint

The stairwell walls got the full treatment — repairs smoothed out, then two coats of paint. The payoff shot says it all:

Freshly painted staircase walls — THE PAYOFF — paint hits the wall and all that patching and sanding pays off. Smooth as glass.

Before and after comparison of the staircase walls — BEFORE / AFTER — the wall that had no style, given one.

Trim: rescuing the old oak

The old trim was solid oak — too good to toss. But decades of shellac had to be cut through with sandpaper before paint would bite. Once scuffed, the old finish actually made a great base. The sequence: scuff, base coat, fill the holes, sand smooth, then finish coats.

Trim is in progress — the reveal lands here when the last coat goes on and the trim goes back up.

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