Every now and then I like to post articles of my own home improvement projects because sometimes I am just a little too impressed with my own work. This project was done last February. But I got to looking at it the other day and decided to write a post about it.
A 6×10 lumber staircase transformation…..
What I had was a staircase that had previously been carpeted. The carpet was like 25 years old and nasty. So off the carpet came, leaving behind the tack strips, countless numbers of staples peppered throughout, nails, and of course the oh so beautiful (yea right) 6×10 lumber that made up the treads. These types of stairs are only meant to be carpeted. If you were to actually want hardwood stairs, then you’d have to remove the bannister and replace each 6×10 piece of lumber with actual oak wood treads, replace the bannister, and stain the treads.
A carpet job on stairs with a bannister can be a little expensive. It would definitely run you over $500 to have someone re-carpet stairs. On a side note, I have some box stairs leading to my basement that I was able to re-carpet by myself. It was a rather easy job and only cost be about $200 total. However, stairs with a bannister can be a little bit of a tougher job for the amateur, which is why a professional installer will want to charge more for re-carpeting those types of stairs.
So I decided to be different and take a shot and see if I couldn’t make some 6×10 lumber stairs look almost as good as an actual oak wood staircase. Afterall, if it fails, then I could always go ahead and carpet over my failed project and be done with it, right?
To begin with, I went to Depot to buy some cheap wood trim to miter and nail where the risers and treads meet to make it look a little nicer. Next, all I had to do was sand and prime the risers. The trim on the side of the stairs needed to be re-painted as well, so that got sanded and primed also. I then re-used a left over gallon of oil-based satin white paint and repainted the trim, bannister, and risers.
Now for the treads. I wasn’t going to stain the treads because they would just end up looking like stained 6×10’s and there was just too much sanding off of old paint that made its way onto the treads sometime way back when the bannister was painted. That would just take forever. My final solution was just to paint the treads black. Yes, that’s right…. black. The paint I used was Behr Porch and Floor paint. It stands up nicely against foot traffic and you can tint it to any color of your choice. The paint went on very easily and penetrated the wood. I was rather impressed because it made the wood look as if it had been ebony stained! I could still see the grain marks and the black paint penetrated so nicely. To top it off, I then covered with a high gloss lacquer. The stairs came out beautiful and cost me about $30 (not including the wood trim I mitered) and some elbow grease. Once again, a low cost solution that is just as beautiful as the alternative.