I did lots of things out of proper order, and this made for a lot of frustration. I LOATHED to work on the stairs. Looking back, I can hardly believe they turned out as well as they did.

After incorrectly sanding and staining the bottom eight steps, I had to resand and restain them. Horrible. They ended up being slightly lighter than the rest, but no one will ever notice but me.

As I reported in the last update, I wet stripped the paint off the side baseboards, and at the time I thought THAT was difficult. Then I wet stripped the bottom newel post. Eeesh, that sucked. Thankfully, someone asked me if I was using a heat gun, and out I went to Canadian Tire and bought one on sale for $50. I think that saved my sanity. Why didn’t I know about this amazing tool? Ahhh… stripping the risers and the three smaller newel posts was A LOT easier.

Two steps and the top landing were up to 3/4ths of an inch unlevel, and Ty shimmed these to be level. This, however, left the two risers with a large gap at the top. I suppose we should have put new risers on these two, but we didn’t. I used that crazy wood epoxy to fill in the gaps. It worked, but I imagine that wasn’t the best way to solve this problem. And the rise from the eighth stair to the first landing is a lot more than the rest. You get used to it, but I have had someone comment on this after walking down the stairs. The only way to have fixed this would have been to redone the entire staircase.

After all the stripping, sanding, filling, sanding, filling, sanding, priming, and painting the risers, I finally got to the three newel posts. I fell madly in love with the old fir wood underneath those many layers of paint, and I was reluctant to paint them. But, they were really in rough shape, many dings and cuts and old wood filler.

Before:

After:

Last of the photos on the stairs to come shortly… (I promise!)

I’ve been dawdling along this week, between work assignments, trying to patch up holes in the wood and such. We decided against staining anything except for the new treads. It’ll be easier that way, and still look good.

We ran into a major problem. It appears that underneath all the paint is a layer or two of dark red stain. I primed the baseboard around the first landing and it seeped through, making the white paint, pink. So I tried a water-based stain blocker, and that didn’t work either. So I either had to sand down to bare wood (no way), or try an oil-based stain blocker. I did the latter, and it worked. I wish it hadn’t come to that, the stuff is so toxic. Ick. I used it to prime the banister and posts as well, since I imagine the orange paint that is seeping through is likely due to that oil stain. That’s why people just keep painting over it, because after a few months the paint colour underneath begins to weep. I don’t know…speculation.

See how red the newel post is? That’s stripped. There’s no way I can sand in all those recesses, so if that stain blocker doesn’t work for that post I’ll have to get a new post turned. Here’s a part of me wishing I hadn’t stripped that post…

Over the holidays we’ve been working on the foyer and the staircase. Painting the entrance area also meant painting beside the stairs and into the hallway upstairs, as the walls are all connected. We decided to go with a bold accent wall on the left, and four shades lighter on the right wall and ceiling. There is horizontal moulding on the walls beside the stairs, and we decided to paint the walls above that moulding a neutral shade, called Elephant Tusk. It looks fabulous so far.

Here’s what the foyer and stairs looked like before we painted.

There was no way we would be able to live with the new wall colour and the dilapidated brown and gold stairs. This is what they looked like before we began demolition.

We’re pretty sure they are the original stairs. They don’t appear to have been built well (many gaps, and a lot of nails, some in unusual spots), although it could also be that they weren’t maintained. And they are somewhere’s around a hundred years old, so it’s not surprising they are in such disrepair. Some of the treads were broken, and the landings are uneven and have breaking boards. We considered simply putting carpet over them, but after doing some research, we decided it wasn’t a very good option. So our Christmas present ended up being 15 engineered oak stair treads at the contractor’s rate of $35.95 each. And lots of sweat equity. (Hopefully.)

The newel posts are gouged and scratched and look terrible. They were painted brown, white, orange and then gold. The orange paint must have been oil-based, because over the past year the orange has “seeped” through the gold. You can see it at the top in this photo.

I stripped the paint from the bottom of the banister and started on the bottom newel post. I’m sanding the risers as they aren’t too bad and don’t have as many layers of paint. We’re also going to paint them the same colour as all the trim and moulding in the house (Swiss Coffee), so it’s not as prudent to strip them.

Our staircase design is to also paint the uprights with Swiss Coffee. The newel posts, handrail, and the bottom of the banister (the part I’m stripping) will be stained a dark brown. This is what they look like right now. Lots of work still to do, but oh boy they are gonna look fabulous when they’re done.