stairs

inmyownstyle.com

Before

Carpeted Steps and Risers

  

  The Process

I always thought since my home was a builders spec house that the steps had no bull-nose.  But low and behold when I went to take a peak to see what was under the carpet I was surprised with bull-nose steps – a big plus.

 The downside: the steps were not hardwood, but soft pine boards with lots of rough knots and imperfections. I didn’t let this stop me though.

 The hardest part of re-doing the stairs was the fact that they were opened on the outer edge. Removing the carpet between the balusters was tough and the carpet was adhered with glue and 20 staples on each outer edge. 

 Once I got all the staples out the edges were pretty chewed up. My hubby help me sand them, but they were not perfect.  Each one had overspray on it from when the detail moulding piece was installed by the builder.  This was hard to remove as each edge was rounded bull-nose.

The veryhardest part (you may not have this problem) was keeping track of where Trax the cat was.  I didn’t want little cat paws in the stain, paint, and poly.  He of course was curious to see what I was up to every time I worked on the steps.  He thought he was my helper.  He did end up one day with a bit of white paint on his tail. 

There were also some other places were the carpet was hard to remove, but it finally all came off. 

With the hard part complete, it was now time to have fun with stain, poly, and paint.

Since the boards were soft pine. I used Minwax Pre-Stain Conditioner on each step before I stained them.  It prepares soft wood like pine to take the stain better. Once the pre-conditioner coat was on I had up until 2 hours to then apply the stain. I used the traditional Minwax stain in the yellow can. I wanted a dark enough color to hide the knots, but not too dark as I wanted it to coordinate with the darkest part of the grain in the floor and the banister as well as the sideboard in my foyer.  I ended up mixing the colors Provincial with Early American and applied it with and old rag.

I stained the steps first.  I took the advice of Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick who recommended in her tutorial to do this first as she painted her risers first and then when she stained the steps the stain got on the painted risers and was hard to get off.

 I used Zinseer Bulls Eye Ultimate Polyurethane.  I applied 3 coats over a two day period, letting each coat dry thoroughly. I did every other step so we could still go up and down.  When those steps were complete, I did the others. I put post- it notes on the steps that could be stepped on, just  in case we forgot which steps were safe.

 When I painted each riser and baluster I used Frogtape to mask out the areas I didn’t want the paint to touch.  It was a teeny bit time consuming putting tape around each baluster, but when I removed it I had perfect edges. I love using this tape, I think it is much better than the blue tape I used to use when painting. 

After

Hello gorgeous!!! 

Why did I wait so long to reveal your hidden beauty? 

I love my new stairs!  It was a very inexpensive project.  I already had the can of white paint (Sherwin Williams Alabaster) and the rest cost under $25.   Don’t they look so fresh and modern… and CLEAN? 

  If your are considering re-doing a staircase in your home, all I can say is – Go Do It – now!  You will be sooo happy you did. 

I have to thank Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick, Kate at Centsational Girl, Rhoda Southern Hospitality, Stephanie at Crea8tive Designs, and Tracy at Cleverly Inspired for providing me with so much inspiration.