Help you do what? Paint them? Decorate them?

are you asking how to paint them or how to decorate them? I wouldnt recommend painting all of that. get a cool light fixture and pay someone to install it and see if that would be enough to make you accept the mega stairwell.

Do you know the cluster glass pendant from West Elm? Create a 3-story version of that. I'm talking one outlet in the ceiling and lights cascading down all 3 flights of stairs. Like a very uneven 20 tails light. Then, give the miles of sheetrock walls and ombre effect with paint. I'm a follower, so I would totally choose a dark grey at the bottom of the 1st floor leading through blue-grey to light blue at the top, but blue/grey is so IN right now, it may make you want to puke.

Check out Lauren Leiss's blog Pure Style Home, she has the same entry in her house and her solution was GENIUS! She even gives the source for all the frames she got- they arent too expensive and look amazing. Here is the link to her house, you can see the entry there: http://purestylehome.blogspot.com/2010/04/just-year-ago.html

ooooh, if it's in your budget I LOVE the idea of huge floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with a sliding library ladder...large artwork also would be nice

i second the Lauren Leiss idea! clean and simple, but still makes a statement.

For something cheap and easy, you can go to a fabric store and get a very nice fabric pattern, spread out along the length of the wall. We actually got ours from IKEA, and we love it. Here's the fabric we used: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10154006.

Watch The Royal Tenenbaums and take notes of their stairwell decor. Better lighting sources.

That does look daunting. Definitely find a more interesting light fixture to replace the fan. I love the idea of one or two HUGE pieces of art (or tapestry) and a bookcase. But even with some strategically placed lighting, bare walls could be more inviting.

a show on OWN just did this last weekend. "We're Moving In" or something... they painted the walls a pale green (safari theme) and ran wood flooring up the walls which looked fantastic.

http://purestylehome.blogspot.com/2010/04/just-year-ago.html

Check out this foyer in Lauren Leiss' home.

And a new light fixture. I don't think a fan is necessary in this spot...

I think if they installed a fan, it was for a very good reason. There may not be very good air circulation in that top floor. Or it may be to draw the A/C up in the summer.

I wouldn't get rid of it until you've lived an entire season in the house.

I have a straight run stair but it has similar 2 story walls and I did a gallery wall similar to Lauren Leiss, and it's very well received. We have black and white family photos on one side and newspapers (husband collects historical headlines) on the other.

What allisonnf sid.

Apartment Therapy...Isn't there a website for "McMansion" owners? What happened to focusing on apartments?

Next week on AT: "Decorate My Airport Terminal"

Art! Also, I agree with the Lauren Leiss inspiration suggestion, and the idea of waiting a little bit to change the fixture to determine if you need the fan.

Agreed with SAzcuy, if I wanted to look at McMansions I'd buy Better Homes and Gardens and live in the burbs.

HUGE TALL McMansion stairwell walls???

OHNOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually you just need a focal point to bring those walls down to size. An interesting, and scale appropriate, lighting fixture - or - a large scale mirror (think starburst/sunray) - or - a large piece of art or smaller pieces that are mounted in a fixed pattern. For one friend's place with a similar wall we collect, at flea markets and the like, vintage signs with her family's last name on them. She's building it over time, I always know what to get her, and it reads 'family' without putting up one of those silly 'Family' signs you can buy at Tarjay.

Skip the starburst/sunray mirror as I just looked at your picture again!

What are they asking for help with? It seems like the first step would be better lighting, because the current lighting is really harsh.

I don’t know who buys these houses, or why. But SAzcuy makes a good point: There should be a site dedicated to addressing the awful “design features” of America’s beloved tract home. Or how about an HGTV show devoted specifically to humanizing your McMansion and creating a faux sense of community within your gated enclave? I’d model it on the movie “Team America World Police” but the marionettes would look more Bratz than Barbie. Host voice by Roseanne Barr. Week 1 features guest judge Sarah Palin.

Floor-to-ceiling bookcases (Ikea hacking could bring the cost down here), new tall light fixture, or a tall mobile (I have a thing for mobiles). Just make it something cool.

Gigantic artwork or tapestry.

I actually would suggest painting... those high walls can be really tricky so if you would really like a color change, maybe hire painters... if not, just find a really nice decorative pendant light and swap out that fan fixture. Also I would absolutely agree with the gallery wall suggestion... I would google a lot of gallery wall images just for ideas and run with that. That space could be wonderful, great opportunity for transformation.

I vote for allisonnf's suggestion!

@arroyo, two points: First, not everybody lives in a big city (including apartment dwellers) but everybody can get good design advice here at AT: it doesn't HAVE to be only for and about apartments. (If you can't find a useful tip in a posting about a house, you CAN SKIP THE POST.) Second, not all houses with tall stairwells are "McMansions". There are even Victorian houses with that feature.

(I live in a new "colonial" you might call a McMansion, (although not to my face!) but it's not the souless residence you seem to be thinking of. Your gross generalizations are kind of insulting, since you don't know what you are talking about.

For a tall stairwell, paint with rollers on extension handles, and/or hire someone with scaffolding to do it for you. If you don't want the whole wall one color, you can divide it at any landing by extending molding from the landing floor across the wall and change colors there. My stairwells bend, and I hang long items like Chinese scroll paintings framed by the stairwell so when you are walking up, there is something to view. (Also they are light weight, since people seem to worry that heavy theings might fall on them in the relatively narrow space -- weird but true.) Tapestries would also be nice for the same reason. Or murals.

"I don’t know who buys these houses, or why."

Really?

Someone should apply for a grant to study what drives people to behave like such giant d-bags on the internet.

So much judgement for someone who just wanted some help with a tall ceiling. There is more content on this site than anyone would ever have free time to read so just move along children if this topic isn't relevant to you. Jeez.

Woof.

Well its not a small scale project, but painting one of those walls with an accent color might help it feel a little more "homey" as opposed to the stairwell in an apartment building. Large, blank, and monotone spaces always come across as warehouse-ish to me.

I love the idea of different lighting, but this is also going to come down to budget. If you can manage it, bringing someone in to install some softer light sources on the walls might give the area a very different feel. On the other hand, that could also run a fair chunk of change. Bare min, I would change out that light fixture for something a little bit more ascetically pleasing. If you were thinking at all of putting any art in here, matching the art to a chandelier would be a perfect fit.

Our friends painted theirs a latte brown. It took pro painters, but it brought the scale down and made it more cozy.

Rent an extension ladder and buy 10 gallons of different brightly colored paint. Climb to the top and dump the paint down the walls. It'll run down and enter twine creating a unique art installation. Change the light fixture to modern and presto! ** you may want to cover the floors at the bottom of the stairs**

@SherryBinNH If you read the original post you'd notice that Kimberly stated, "I just bought a house with HUGE TALL McMansion stairwell walls". Arroyo et al were just playing-off her question.

@badpoodle I like apartment therapy and love it when there content is relevant. They have sites devoted to the kitchn, children, etc...why can't they have a site for large homes? I understand posts that feature large homes as inspiration for the apartment dweller; but watering down the content just to add to the number of posts is silly and counterproctive in the long-run. If I have to wade through irrelevent posts, I'll go somewhere else.

I value the content and comments on Apartment Therapy; therefore I believe this is constructive. Not simply snark.

@SAzcuy I think it's a tad unreasonable to expect every post on this site to pertain to you. Yes I suppose it would be great if there was a site for every size home, but there isn't. I don't think it's cool to make a poster feel bad for posting because they have a different housing preferance than you do. You may have not intended to be snarky but there was plenty of snark on here. I guess I wish there was a snark free site to discuss interior design.

It'd be difficult but you could do a ombre paint effect. Start with white way up at the top and then slowly add color until you have a seriously intense color at the bottom. I think that would help scale down the size while making it a major focal point.

It is hard to judge the paint color - the greenish cast could be the photo - so here goes.

A relatively inexpensive solution would be to plot out the tall wall and try arranging colored squares and rectangles on it lengthwise. Then figure out what colors you plan to use and try filling in the shapes. Then buy stretcher strips and fabric in those colors and create a relatively inexpensive custom wall. You will need to use relatively large shapes. Hanging this will be tough. Decide if you want/need to paint the wall a base or accent color. After this is in place, figure out the lighting.

You can also used fabric with patterns.

I hope this helps.

Two left-of-centre ideas:

1. Connect together a couple of dozen colourful paper lanterns, preferably of varying sizes, and hang them in the centre of the void, in a cheap, cheerful and irreverent version of those vast modern waterfall light fittings that McMansion owners usually hang in these spaces. The colours will draw the eye away from the vast emptiness of the walls.

2. Get a light source and a silhouette, and throw a giant shadow artwork up onto the longest wall.

Brighten the space up with white paint or something very light and add an eye-catching oversized print or canvas (you could even make your own canvas and go Pollock-like). Some kind of light fixture with substance is definitely needed - so depending on your taste and budget, perhaps some kind of pendant light, or chandelier. Good luck.