I know it isn’t a sexy title, but I wanted it to convey just what is being written about here, which is how I am tackling the painting of the roughed-in, knotty pine, builder-grade stairs in our home. This is just Part One – the backstory, prep and first layers of paint.
It has been a longer process than I’ve imagined, for multiple reasons, which I’ll get into shortly. You may be asking why we decided remove the carpet from our builder-grade stairs, and the answer is that we didn’t have much choice. We had an aging kitty with kidney disease and if you’ve had a cat urinate on your carpet, you know it is impossible to remove the odor. We tried all types of cleaners and solutions and sprays, to no avail, so the carpet and padding were removed. That was 4 years ago and we have gotten used to the unfinished stairs. I added carpeted tread mats to keep to the dogs (and us) from slipping and to reduce noise. Every so often, Hubs and I would have a discussion about what to do to finish the stairs, some suggestions included installing new treads and risers or stain the rough pine, but eventually the mood passed and we went on living with our unfinished pine stairs. Until now…
We are prepping the house for sale and, while the roughed-in, unfinished steps may be fine for us, we doubt they will be a huge selling point. Time to make a decision and get it done. We could tell by looking at the stairs that the builder used “liquid nails” to secure the treads, so removing them to install new treads would be a bigger chore than either of us wanted to tackle, not to mention the cost. So, the easiest option seemed to be to stain the existing wood, although the thought of applying multiple coats of polyurethane did not appeal to me. I spent a lot of time Googling and Pinteresting and YouTubing, to find the right products to use and steps to take for the look I wanted to achieve. Then, Hubs came home from work and told me about a product he had seen on the interwebs – porch, patio and floor paints! After a bit more web searching, the results I found showed NO POLY needed. Finally, this was my answer!!
Be very careful when working on stairs. Pay attention to where you are – I thought I was stepping back onto the floor, but was really still on the third step, so I fell backwards. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt badly. Also, there is a lot of repetitive bending and standing, which can cause lightheadedness.
My first step was to sand the stairs, and I planned to use a random orbit sander for the majority of this but would need something to get into the corners. So, while Hubs and I were at Home Depot picking up the paint, we hit the tool aisle and chose a Ryobi Corner Cat detail sander, which I lo-oo-oove!! Our dining room entry is right at the bottom of the steps, so I covered the opening with plastic and painters tape, hoping to keep the majority of the sawdust in the foyer. One of the downfalls of an ‘open’ floorplan is that it is difficult to seal off other areas of the house from sanding dust. Oh well, nothing that a vacuum and dust rag can’t clean up. After sanding, I vacuumed the stairs and wiped down with wet rags.
The next step is to fill all the holes. I used regular, water-based wood filler and started at the top and worked my way down, filling holes and cracks on the treads and risers. When I used filler, or spackle, I don’t slap it on and leave it on thick; I fill in the area and try to even out the filler with surface and clean the excess as I go. It makes the next steps much easier. Some of the areas were rather deep, so I left the filler to dry overnight before sanding. Then, I had a brilliant idea! I had seen DIYers on TV use wet sanding sponges to sand spackle, so, why couldn’t I use the same technique on the water-based wood filler? So, I did and I was happy with the results. I filled a bucket with clean water, grabbed a sanding sponge from our box of supplies and went to work. I made sure to wring out the sponge well and didn’t rub or push into the areas I was ‘sanding’. The care I took during the filling step certainly helped here.
After the steps had dried, I added my first coat of primer, which is pretty self-explanatory. I did all the steps in one day, because the primer was supposed to dry to the touch within an hour. When I did the second coat, I did every other step, and the primer still seemed sticky at day’s end, so I slept on the main floor with our dogs so they wouldn’t walk on the stairs.
The next day, the gaps on some of the stairs were very noticeable, so another trip was made to the Home Depot, where I picked up DAP Simple Seal for Paint Projects. This product was very easy to use and made a HUGE difference filling in the gaps between treads and risers and stairs and stringers. However, it was another product I needed to let dry before painting, and I wanted to hit it with primer to ensure even paint adhesion, so it added another day to the project.
Finally, on Wednesday, I was ready to paint! I had been up most of the night, coughing and achy, thanks to Hubs sharing his bug with me, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I went to the garage, grabbed the paint gallon and set to work. As I worked, I did think the paint seemed thin, but I continued on and painted every other stair tread. After I finished, I cleaned up my supplies and I noticed the color name on top of the paint can…Drift Gray. It took a few beats for my sleep-deprived brain to catch up…Drift Gray is the color of the deck stain we bought at the same time as the stair paint. Oi! I did not want to stain the stairs. Not a huge problem, I just went over them with the paint we chose, Shiitake, and they look fine.
I figured I’d be able to knock this project out in 4-5 days. That was 10 days ago. When you have a house inhabited by another human and four-legged, furry creatures, sometimes DIY takes a backseat to RL. In addition to daily interruptions and other project requiring my attention, there are those little things like underestimating the time it will take to fill ALL the holes left by the carpet (I’m sure the installers were paid by the staple!), the drying time of the filler, primer, and caulk, having to paint alternating steps, and the time it takes to wait for one coat of the wrong finish to dry so that you can do a second coat with the right finish. And now the bug has morphed into a bronchitis/flu mutation pneumonia, which has been accompanied by dizziness and a 101° fever off-and-on for the past 2.5 days. Playing on the stairs in such a state would not be a bright idea.
So, while I recover from this wicked mutant crud, we live with multi-colored stairs. On the plus side, the stairs that have been painted are holding up well. It has been, and continues to be, an experience and I will post another update at it’s conclusion.