The Home Depot has been getting a terrific response from our free Do-It-Herself Workshops, held every month in Home Depot stores across the country. We’ve asked some of our favorite DIY and home improvement bloggers to participate, guest hosting the workshops in select cities.

Sarah, the talent behind  Thrifty Decor Chick, has been blogging about thrifty home decor and DIY projects at since 2008. Sarah is always very encouraging to anyone interested in using their own two hands to make their home better. Here, she tells us how she turned a staircase into a centerpiece for her lovely home decor… and the courage it took to tackle the project.  

I haven’t had any special training, just a desire to make my home beautiful without paying someone to do it all for me! Through a lot of research, practice, and some not-so-great DIY projects, I’ve come a long way over the years and learned a lot.

I find it’s all about trying – getting that courage to do something you’ve never done. I think you’d be surprised at the results! But believe me, my first attempts were not perfect. Actually most of my latest work still isn’t perfect, but it’s little stuff no one would notice.

One of my favorite projects I’ve ever done in our home was on our staircase transformation. We built our home and had carpet put on the stairs:

But for years I dreamt of beautiful wood stairs with painted risers and stained treads like those I saw in the magazines. I was lucky that our builder used nice, rounded treads on our stairs, which was half the battle.