Renovating my stairs

Evening all.

My stairs are pretty horrible.



On the stairs, you can see my brand new toy. Bought it today out of my christmas money.

That sander will take the paint off, but it will take some time. Should I use paint stripper or something first, or just go for it with the sander?

Also, once I've shined it all up to new wood, it wont take long before the wood discolours again with people walking on it all the time, but I haven't decided whether to paint it or varnish it (or something else?) yet. Say I was going to get the paint/varnish/something else on pay day (end of the month), is it worth sanding the stairs now, or wait til I know what I'm doing with it?

Basically, what would you do to make these stairs less horrid to look at?

 

Best thing is to take off and Nuke the whole site from orbit, its the only way to be sure.

I'd use a Peelaway product but that might not be practical with Jamesy about. If you sand it down it will need some treatment sooner as it will get dirty very quickly. You could use Danish oil.



Thats what i've used on my oak floorboards.

Or Poly urethane varnish.



Thats what I used on the pine in the corridor, as it gets dirt walked in from outside & is easier to wash.

 

Errrr, cover them with carpet????

You have a nightmare job there, good luck.

 

I've considered carpet, but downstairs is all either laminate or tiles, and the house is quite light and airy, so I think the bare floors work well. Except the stairs, which are awful.

 

Danish oil vs Varnish - am I right in thinking that a varnished surface will be slippy if anything gets spilt on it or if people have wet shoes on? Would Danish oil be less slippy or just the same?

 

The stairs were probably painted like that from day one, its how it was then, you just had a strip or carpet up the middle if you were rich enough.

I'd hate to spend the rest of my life trying to clean that paint out of every corner, and I'm not sure it would look that great if you did, you would probably never get rid of the colour difference between the painted part and the bare wood.

The staircase is from another age, BLF.

Before Laminate Flooring.

 

Might sand it a bit and then paint it all then. If it turns out to be a disaster, then I guess I'll put a carpet on it.

 

I wear Crocs & slip over the same amount on either finish if it gets wet Although i'd say Danish oil would be less slippy for stairs as it soaks in.

 

i used coarse sand paper with block a scraper and lots of elbow power when i did mine as we had no power in our house for 3 months when i did our stairs we ended up putting carpet down though as we just found it too noisy with No carpet and teenagers running up and down the three flights !

 

I think its going to have to be carpets the more I think about it. The floor boards upstairs are not in the best condition, so carpet makes sense on the landing. Which means it makes sense to put carpet on the stairs.

Plus its constantly somewhere in the back of my mind that I have a young son who, like all kids, has no sense of danger so we regularly have to tell him not to lark about on the stairs. It occurs to me that if someone was to do a stunt and attempt a new land speed record for descent of stairs, it might hurt a tiny bit less if a carpet is involved. Its not much padding, but it surely must count as padding more than bare wood.

 

and no matter how hard you try with old stairs they always find that stay splinter !!

you saying about kids on the stairs ... we had a lucky call yesterday 3 of the older granchildren wanted to play in attic ( playroom ) and kept playing silly buggers on them i had just called up and started to say it when ........BUMP bang thud thud thud thud followed by all 3 screaming as one of them slipped and skittled the others over thank goodness no one was hurt ...... later when the went up to the attic they never even spoke until they got to the attic door !

 

Ouch. I'm glad they weren't really hurt, but I bet it was pretty scary for all concerned.

 

My industious neighbor working hard in his carpenter shed replaced all the inside steps of his home buy cutting new wood etc. He's really into it, showed me other stuff, does good work.

Anyway, go with carpet. get a nice berber, or a tight weave one.

 

it was i wasnt sure what i would find as i reached the middle landing ... ironically the one who slipped cried the most but wasnt hurt the other two had small bumps and lumps but they never cried, when i commented on how brave they had been they said not really it was our faullt as we were playing monsters and scaring the youngest ones ... just glad no one was really hurt and that they learned a painful lesson to boot

 

My whole bungalow has been gutted and refurbished over the last five years. All the skirting has been replaced and I stripped all the wood doors and frames. Now low maintenance, I coated it (3 coats) with Ronseal Satin 'Dark Oak' varnish. Being satin it has a slight sheen but still feels more like it has been stained, so I don't think it would be slippery on the floor. Ronseal also produce a Matt finish.





Clueless it took weeks to strip the doors and frames to get them to the point where I could varnish and I wouldn't relish doing a staircase.

Carpet would be the best way to go, something that will blend with your present floors.