The staircase has a beautiful stained glass window and horrible paint, from maybe 1981.  The stairwell feels dirty and dark.  OK.  The paint has probably been here for thirty years.  It is DIRTY!  We decided to take this on as our first project.  Matt is an excellent painter so we knew we could tackle this on our own.  (unlike the plumbing which is still a work in progress)  Off we went to the big box store.  Normally I would just pick a color and buy the paint.  This is a big space.  We decided to start with samples and make sure we liked the color before jumping in with both feet.  The windows are a soft pink, yellow and green.  We wanted to pick up something light from the window as our color.  I knew it would not be pink!  The first thought was white that had a green tint to it.  We tried several and none looked right.  We moved to whites with a yellow tint and after several more trips to the big box we finally found our color.  We are all shocked at how much brighter the stairwell feels.

Amazing that a little paint can so drastically change the look of a space.