In this prior post, I wrote about George ripping out the carpet on our stairwell so we could redo the flooring.
The stairs at the beginning of the project, with stained carpet
We were debating how to do the new flooring: put in hardwood, stain the wood that was under the carpet, etc. George had the idea to paint the wood that was under the stairs white. At first I was skeptical, but we did some online research to see what it’d look like, and I agreed with him on painting the stairs. The benefits of painting the stairs were that we didn’t have to buy and install new flooring, which would be expensive and time-consuming, and painting instead of staining the wood meant that we didn’t have to completely sand away all the stains and paint that were on the wood.
The first step in painting the stairs was to sand the wood. George valiantly undertook this task.
The stairs before sanding
George sanded off the bits of carpet foam still attached, as well as prepare the surface to accept paint.
Then we had to prime the wood to get it ready for paint. I did 2 coats of primer so that the wood looked perfect. I primed every other stair so that we could continue to go up the stairs. Then when the paint dried, I primed the other stairs.
Finally it was time to paint! We used Olympic white semi-gloss paint, which is the same paint we’ve used on the trim throughout the house. I changed up the strategy, though. Painting every other stair when doing the primer increased the time spent on the project. This was exacerbated by the fact that between coats I’d need to clean the stairs since they’d get dirty while we walked on every other tread. These stairs go to the basement, and we can walk around outside to bypass them. So for a few days we walked around outside and didn’t use the stairs. While it was a pain to go around, that was a lot easier than it would’ve been to paint every other tread, clean, and then paint the other set of every other tread. Since I’d primed, one coat of paint was enough. The color was consistent and good looking.
I wasn’t done though! Since it’s stairs we’re talking about, the paint needed to be protected. So it was time to polyurethane. We got this awesome polyurethane from Lowe’s, which won me over because it cleans up with soap and water, and because it didn’t require sanding between coats, which was amazing!
Here’s the polyurethane I used, which I applied with a foam brush.
The polyurethane required at least 4 hours of drying time between each coat, and three coats were recommended. The polyurethane went on quickly and without incident. I just had to be sure that there wasn’t too much in the corners of the vertical stair sections, or it would drip.
Overall this project was a pain due to not being able to use the staircase. The project wasn’t difficult, though. Painting and polyurethaning is easy enough, if tedious. I’m glad we did it because the stairs look so much better!
The finished stairs
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