Check out daisyadair's blog. She redid her stairs, and did a beautiful job. I know others here have also redone theirs. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: daisyadair's Stair Blog

Is that stain-quality wood? I can't tell on my monitor what kind of wood it is.

If it is, then I think staining the treads and painting the risers would be a nice compliment to the railing as it is.

Texanjana: THANK YOU so much for that link!! Awesome!!!

Les: I am totally sure if the wood is stainable LOL!!! It looks a bit grainy and knotty, but since reading daisy's blog, the floor paint sounds like a great option if the stain doesn't turn out how I like it.

Daisy: Not sure if you will chime in or not, but your staircase is an inspiration to get rid of crappy carpet and end up with a beautiful staircase!!!

(another stair's carpet bit the dust... ain't no stopping now LOL!!!) Wait 'til DH gets home bwaaa haaaa haaaa!!!

Oh, and I should add I have NO clue what lies beneath the carpet on the landing. This could be trouble....

Dixiedo - the bottom of your stairs look very similar to mine! Under our landing are 2x4 pine planks. I just put a rug on the landing. My neighbor down the street was just in last night. She has the exact same stairs as mine and was So excited that I put the "recipe" in my blog.
She's doing hers this spring break.

Good luck with yours! Let me know if you have any questions.

Looks like you have pine treads and fir faced plywood risers.

dlm: you seem very knowledgable about about the wood... does it stand a shot of being stained or is paint my only option??

Daisy, I am up to the landing now, but taking a break thanks to some beautiful blisters I've got going. For the most part, it hasn't been too bad, withthe exception of the 10000000 tiny baby staples they used on the riser portion of the staircase. These things are so bloody little it is taking forever to get them out.

The treads haven't been too bad though, luckily, and once I turn the landing, the stairs are a normal width and it should go quicker than the splayed section.

Pine can be stained but it's not the pretiest of woods and needs to be sealed first so the stain takes evenly otherwise it has a tendencey to be blotchy. But the bigger concern is that pine is a very soft wood and will wear very quickly from footfalls on the stairs and could make splinters an issue. The fir plywood will take paint but it could be hard to get a smooth finish unless you got a whole lotta coats of paint on there! The fir grain has a tendency to pop through. One thing that might make a difference, though.....how old is the house? If the pine is 30 or 40 years old it's not quite as soft as what we have today and you might have better luck with the treads.

What are you using to pull the staples?

Oh dixi you are funny! sounds like something i would do!

Can you wipe the stairs & risers w/damp cloth then take some close ups so we can confirm the identification of wood

If you do end up staining you will have to sand them, which will get messy and send fine sawdust everywhere - thats the downside - the upside is you may have beautiful, minimal maintenance stairs if you get them properly stained & poly'd - I would not try to match the adjacent flooring rather blend it - pick a med color from those floors to go with

good luck

That's awesome! I support your efforts fully, although I don't have any info on wood... Last summer, a month before our major kitchen renovation started, I got antsy and ripped out the kids' bathroom while my husband was at work. I took off the wallpaper and the vanity. He was very unhappy, but he got over it and now the bathroom looks great.

One compromise you can do (what I'm planning to do, too) is to buy new treads (the horizontal parts) that are definitely stain-grade wood that matches your flooring, and then paint the risers. You won't be worrying about whether anyone will tell the wood is different from your flooring, but you won't have paid full price for a whole new set of stairs.

What I'm actually planning to do is to buy stain-grade white oak treads and then *mosaic* the risers, but that's just me :)

We're in the process of finishing our stairs as well. The bottom of the stairs was redesigned when we put an addition on the house and the carpenter did a poor job of it (treads and risers were all different sizes). So, last week, I had someone else come do them again. I like them sooo much better. But, I have very bad pine on mine, so they have to be resurfaced. My cabinet maker is going to cover them with new treads and risers, but he is slow, so I don't know when he'll get to finishing them.

Your stairs look great! They will be beautiful when you get finished. I bet you smile every time you go up and down them :-)

OK, here is a little update:

Took off more carpeting last night, here is what DH came home to (heee heeee):

So, this moring I decided to take a quick swipe of stain to it to see what appeared. This is what I got:

Doesn't look *too* horrible in that section, but this just ain't gonna fly:

So, I thinking the solution that fits best with my budget would be to paint them out (a la Daisy) and eventually get a runner for them.

Here is a little plant ledge that is on the landing that shows the color I Am thinking... it is a Ralph Lauren shade (can't remember it and the can is at DHs office):

So, that is where I am at. I see a whole lot of sanding, patching, sanding, priming, painting, sanding, painting, etc etc in my future, but it is a whole lot better than our crappy carpet.

Daisy, do you find it hard to keep clean and looking nice with being such a dark shade?? Do you get a lot of dust??

I get a lot of cat hair! 5 cats who love to sit on the landing and gaze at their domain. I just wipe it down with a damp towel and it's good as new. So much better for the allergies.

I can not emphasize enough how safe the SW floor paint is - shoes, socks, barefoot, cat paws - No slipping at all.

Daisy, it has help up to your foot traffic as well?? YOur stairs just look amazing!!

Flyleft: Mosaic risers?? Do share!!!

Dixie, you are my hero. No way, would I have had the guts to do what you did. I thought I was all that and a bag of chips when I asked the guy (a friend) we hired to clean our carpets before move-in in our former house, to lift up a corner of the bedroom carpet to see if there was good wood floor. There was, and we had wood in our bedroom for the first time. My bravery was at an all-time high!! (of course, he was there to tack it back down if there was a nightmare underneath!)

Post your progress. Love it!

REd

Red... truth be told, I am shaking in my boots LOL!!! But ya know what??? It was nothing that couldn't be fixed, KWIM?? The carpet was a mess (chocolate milk, crayon, GOD knows what else), so if it turned out to be a huge disaster, I'd have new carpet (darker or patterned) installed.

*BUT* between Daisy's stairs and Puckhog's railing, I think our staircase has the potential to be AMAZING!!!! (fingers and toes crossed!)

PS What a DREAM to have HW in a bedroom... sigh.....

I wonder what's under these....hummmmm

{{!gwi}}

(PO's decor...we let the cow skull go with the sale LOL)

DH put hardwood thru out the house, including stair treads. I then put mosaic tiles on the stair risers. We really like the look. Tiles are small, on a grid back and were ~12"x12" sheets. I cut the sheets to fit (DH had to cut some tiles in half) and set them. The cut sheets were fast to install but the single half tiles took time. Seemed like each riser had cut tiles along a long edge and a short edge.

BTW, These photos were taked while the grout was still wet.

{{!gwi}}
{{!gwi}}

Dixiedo, no guts, no glory! Good for you, you GO girl!

Why do you say the stain isn't going to fly? I like it. I would maybe go over it a couple of times more with stain to darken the steps and minimize the contrast of the wood. The way I'm seeing it they have the potential to look like hearth pine that is stained really dark.

lyfia: the wood is most likely the cheapest thing our builder could find. I went over the section 3X with stain and the darker parts got even darker, and the lighter parts remained the same, so it looked worse the more I did LOL! Plus, the stairs towards the top are in really awful condition and I needed to patch them and sand them badly.

Ready for primer... will post pics later!

Marzhere: NICE JOB!! What a neat look, I couldn't picture it when fly mentioned it above!

Yeah you are not alone in getting into trouble. Usually I get my DH caught up in it too! Now when I say, I have an idea... he is worried cause he knows something big is coming.. like the one that was sooo labor intensive and expensive a few years ago, hey I have an idea... since we are thinking about new wall to wall lets take it up now, so we can see what shape it is in and get it really clean( we put in the original carpet when DS was tiny)
Sooo. We refinished the floors ourselves since they are fragile , and bought room size orientals for dining and living rooms.
So my ideas mean lots of work and $$.Sue

Dixie-

It's very tough to match existing color. However, by itself, I think the pine tread doesn't look too bad. I would precondition and use a stain color that's more similar to the floor.

Mazheer: look at this! Isn't this amazing?

{{!gwi}}

Bella, that staircase is just stunning!!!

I just put on a coat of primer, and I have to say I am alot less scared right now than I was when I had everything patched and sanded. At least it looks like a staircase again!!

I am going in phases, here is phase one with one coat of primer:

Next, I will tackle the landing since I still have no clue what lies beneath. Then I will start on the upper portion. Alot of work, but I still think we have less stairs than Daisy ;-)

**The million dollar question**

Should I paint the section of wood on the bottom of the baulasters white or brown?? Right now they are stained brown.. the grain is ugly and if I end up painting the handrails and posts(like puckhogs), I don't want to leave it stained. White or Brown? Brown or White?? I think the dust and hair would show up badly if it were white, but Daisy's looks nice white... decisions!!

Uh oh, my first hiccup.... particle board on the landing:

Shoot. Do I try to lay new plywood on top?? What about the edge of the step??

I wouldn't paint the wood under the balusters just yet - this is such a big job, and they look good how they are now. If you change your mind, painting them later is a small job.

If we would have had a plywood landing, my husband said he would have pulled it up and replaced it with pine boards - 2 X ? It will depend on the size of your landing. Ours happend to be 2 X 6's.

You're making great progress! Love you wainscotting up the stair wall.

I love the white painted wood -- could you just paint the particleboard? Try Kilz first -- maybe a couple of coats -- and then just paint it.

Teacats... I am afraid I can't just paint it. It is in terrible condition... I had to lay down a throw rug because my poor kids would have slivers through their feet!

The section under the balusters will have to get done soon. The far away pictures are deceiving because IRL it looks bad. Here it is closeup:

Good enough for us at the time, but very uneven and something that bothered me from the time we tried staining the oak darker. If I am priming and painting, I would like to keep going and finish this project before the nice weather comes (which in Buffalo won't be until May LOL!).

Anyways, tore up the rest of the carpet and now am working on removing the pad and staples. PITA I tell you!!

Sigh. I'll see what DH thinks about the landing when he gets home!

Could you install wood flooring on the landing? It wouldn't be expensive for that small of an area.

Little update:

Got my first coat on the bottom portion of the stairs!! Looks good, it is deceiving that the picture makes it look so good... definitely needs a second coat and we still need to do the quarter-round trim pieces along the back. BUt so far, so good!!

Now, here is the section I had a question about:

Do I want to paint the bottom section (the part that is currentlt stained) of the balusters white or brown? The white would be MUCH easier (for obvious reasons), but if it would look funny to only have the handrail and posts brown with the rest white, I will paint it brown as well:

WOW! Your work is looking terrific! You're an inspiration to all of us whose decorating ambitions strike terror into the hearts of our partners.

Regarding the question of white or brown on the surface below the spindles, here's what I'd suggest. The paneled wainscot at the landing looks great, and I wonder if you can add a bit of molding to the skirting board and/or the section in question so that it appears more related to the paneled sections. Then you can paint that section white and, at the same time, bring more visual harmony to your stairway project.

Hmmmmm... VERY interesting suggestion lynnski!!! I wonder if anyone could mock that up with photoshop to get a visual??!!

dixie, great job.

Looks reallly sharp Dixie!!! You should be very proud of yourself, it's no small undertaking.

Thanks everyone!! Having to take a break until the kids go up to bed tonight. I am hoping to get a first coat on the upper portion tonight. This weekend DH should be able to cut the wood for the landing.

Hopefully, he likes the way it looks :~)

Wow, Dixie, look at you go! It's looking wonderful.

Have all of you looked at this link?

Here is a link that might be useful: Staircase ideas

Wow! That looks so great. I am impressed. Makes me want to work on my basement stairs.

Good lick with the rest of your project.

I think the bottom section should be stained. I know that's not what you wanted to hear :)

Laurie

Very impressive. You have done a wonderful job beyond. As for the landing, you can by stair tread edges to attach to the wood added there. Big box stores sell them.

Wow -- Dixie and Daisy. You're so inspiring. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences. My poor husband. He's going to be so bummed when he learns I'm starting another project.

Wow Dixie, you did great that looks like a pro did it. May I ask, what color did you paint the steps?

Looks very elegant! I'm wondering: what does your husband think of it now that it's been so fantastically transformed?

Oh my, that is an amazing makeover. They look so much better than the carpeting.