Painting our stairs, part 1
/How to Prep and Paint Your Stairs
A few days after we moved into this house I took the day off work to get things organized. 8 hours later I had ripped the hideous carpet runner (and 8,000 staples) off the stairs. And 3 months later I got my butt in gear, painted our stairs, and haven’t looked back since!
The carpet that was on the staircase when we moved in was dark, musty, and not to mention ugly. I couldn’t wait to get it out of there!
Picture from the house listing.
Carpet be Gone!
I didn’t get a chance to refinish the stairs at our previous house before we moved, so I was especially excited to get a chance to makeover these bad boys.
But after I ripped up the carpet, the stairs stayed bare… for 3 months. There are so many things in this house we want to get our hands on, so it was easy to get distracted painting the loft, the foyer, and our oldest daughter’s room.
But once those rooms were painted (though I don’t consider any of them to be complete yet), I felt like I could shift my focus back to the stairs. Here’s how I tackled them!
Getting started - prep work
(so.much.prep work.)
First thing’s first…. If you’re starting with carpeted stairs like I did, you’ll need some good pliers and work gloves to rip it out. Those saved my dainty little lady hands from a lot of pain.
Next, take out the staples. It’s tedious and will take a whole bunch of time, but getting all the staples out is key to a nice end product. Just throw on some music, a movie, or a podcast (if you’re a true crime fanatic like I am, I highly recommend My Favorite Murder) and get comfortable. You’re gonna be there for a while.
If you already have bare stairs, I’m jealous because you’re at a way better starting point than I was. Either way, once your stairs are bare, CLEAN THEM! I wiped mine down with a Magic Eraser and some water and was appalled (yet oddly satisfied) at how much dirt came off them.
Next, fill the crap outta all the little holes you just created with wood filler. Here’s what I used.
I went through so much more wood filler than I anticipated. Since the holes were so small, I just used my fingers to push the filler into them, rather than a putty knife.
Also, I learned a new trick - when your wood filler starts to dry out, add just a little bit of water and mix it together to revive it. Dry wood filler would rather stick to your fingers than the wood and it’s infuriating. This trick saved the stairs from a lot of unkind words.
As you can see below, I wasn’t shy about filling in not just holes, but also dents, nicks, and cracks.
Once your wood filler is dry, you’ll need to sand off the excess.
I started sanding by hand and after about an hour when I had only completed 3 stairs Lucius asked me why I wasn’t using our palm sander. In my stubbornness, I almost said, “I’m too far in!” and kept painstakingly sanding by hand, but my reasonable side luckily stepped in and said, “girl, just try it”. And I’m so glad I did.
Although the palm sander spread dust EVERYWHERE (like, I really should have closed the bedroom doors before I started), it was way faster than hand sanding and the end product was a lot more smooth and consistent.
Our sander is similar to this one and I used 100 grit sandpaper. I could have/maybe should have used a finer grit, but 100 grit was what I had on hand and I didn’t notice any significant scrapes or roughness so I think it turned out fine. You could also use an orbital sander.
Once your sanding is complete, you need to thoroughly clean the stairs again. I started by vacuuming the stairs. Then I gently wiped them down with wet paper towels. I didn’t want to wipe the wood filler out of any crevices so I opted not to use a Magic Eraser this time. At this point, I realized it was a good idea to caulk any gaps or cracks to make everything look seamless. Make sure you’re using paintable caulk for this.
FINALLY, it was time to prime! I planned on using a latex primer, but ended up using oil for two reasons: 1 - I feel that oil primer typically dries harder and holds up better, and 2 - I have a stupid amount of oil primer on hand. I should really stop buying more before checking my stock first.
I typically steer away from oil-based paints and primers because of the VOCs (fumes and chemical off-gassing), and the fact that you have to use mineral spirits or paint thinner to clean your tools after you use them, which feels chemically and gross to me. But since stairs need to be pretty darn durable (compared to a wall that no one will be walking on several times a day), it made sense in this situation. I used Killz Original Oil-based Primer and applied it with a cheap brush similar to this that I could just throw away when I was done.
I knew there would be holes that I missed while filling the first time around. Adding a coat of primer to the stairs helped identify any holes I missed as well as some stray staples. I pulled out the remaining staples and filled the rest of the holes.
After this round of wood filler dried, I had to sand again. I didn’t want to sand off the primer, and there were way fewer areas to sand this time around, so I just sanded these areas down by hand.
Afterward, I vacuumed the stairs again, and to take it a step further to make sure the stairs were super duper clean before I put down my first layer of paint, I wiped them down with tack cloth. Tack cloth is just a sticky version of cheesecloth used for picking up dust and small particles for jobs just like this. It’s super inexpensive (less than $2.00 for two of them) and well worth it.
The exciting part - Painting!
After hours of prep work, I was so excited to get some uniform color on these sad, ugly stairs. I knew I wanted to paint the stairs, rather than buying an actual runner. I hate vacuuming stairs, so painting the stairs was really the only option. For the last several months, I had been researching different design ideas. Here were the three contenders:
The third example is actually a carpet runner, but I did consider painting a runner (without the extra stripes on either side like the one in the middle) in a similar color. The third example also has the treads painted a different color than the risers so I guess I had 4 ideas I was considering. Initially, I was really leaning toward painting a runner similar to the second and third options above, until I covered the stairs with rosin paper between work sessions…
…and realized how much more narrow the stairs felt. This stairway is already fairly narrow, and the “runner” just seemed to emphasize that. At that point, it was pretty clear that I needed to lose the idea of painting any kind of runner and just focus on painting the treads, like in the first example above.
From doing loads of research I knew I needed to buy floor paint for this project, so off to Lowe’s I went! And I was honestly kind of underwhelmed. Usually, I LOVE Lowe’s (and frequently refer to it as the happiest place on Earth… and may have seriously considered working there part-time when I retire years and years from now), but their selection of paint for this project seemed to be lacking. Valspar seemed to be my only choice of paint and only in a select range of colors and sheens. I ended up grabbing a quart of this in satin in a tan color called Covered Bridge and applied it with my preferred 2-inch angled brush.
Once I started on the first tread, I quickly realized that I needed to break out my painter’s tape. Painting under the lip of the tread (the part of the stairs you step on) without getting a ton of paint on the risers (the vertical parts of the step) was proving trickier than I thought. Typically I don’t use painter’s tape (I feel like it gives me a false sense of security and I usually end up making a bigger mess), but with this project it was necessary.
Finally, I was able to get to painting the treads, which was so, so satisfying. This part really only took about an hour for all the treads.
When I got to the bottom and looked up I was… again underwhelmed. The color clashed a little bit with the greige walls (it looks like it matches perfectly in the pictures, but trust me, it clashed) and although it lightened the staircase and looked cleaner, there was just something missing. The next day when Lucius walked up the stairs in his shoes and left prints on the freshly painted treads, I knew that I had to buy a different sheen anyway, so I decided to take that opportunity to check out some other colors too.
Back to Lowe’s I went!
I looked over the colors and decided to go with something darker and with a little more gray in it to pull out some of the grays in the walls, rather than the beige. The color I used was Elkhorn Cactus, and I was immediately happier with it. Unfortunately, the only sheen available other than satin was gloss, and they didn’t have any additives that I could buy to add texture. I’m a little nervous about the glossy sheen, but we’ll give it a little while and if there’s too much slipping and sliding going on, I’ll consider adding some anti-slip tread covers, like this.
Final Thoughts
Our stairs are now looking a bajillion times better than what we started with, but there’s still lots of work to be done - painting the handrails, newel posts, and balusters, and figuring out what in the world we’re going to do with the landing.
In case you didn’t notice in the pictures above, the landing is its own animal. Below is a picture to save you from scrolling back up.
The above is actually an improvement from what we started with when I pulled the carpet off - knotty, thin plywood. But it’s similar to an MDF type material and I really don’t think it’ll stand the test of time, so we’ll find a better solution.
Once we come up with a game plan for the landing, I’ll be sure to write a step-by-step (hah, I couldn’t help myself…) post about it and show the complete, finished product. In the meantime, stay tuned. This story isn’t over yet.
