This is a case of “how we tried to keep the budget low by saving money on the floors upstairs” which now just seems hilarious and cute. That’s right. Years ago when we bought this house we knew that we needed to do a lot of work on the first floor (reconfigure the living room, add the totally necessary sunroom, and redo the poorly constructed 60s addition). But the second floor was fine! Just needed some paint and new carpet. It’s just for the kids anyway, not our room…But once we realized that we needed all new plumbing and actual electrical, it was full of asbestos and lots of lead paint, we ended up tearing open the walls. But we were still in this “let’s save up here, the kids don’t need fancy” attempt. We wanted to splurge downstairs on some things, including the flooring, but upstairs? No, it was fine! We’d put in new carpet (there wasn’t original wood underneath), and paint the stairs and the landing. Done.
Underneath the carpet here on the stairs was wood flooring (just not in the bedrooms and I don’t remember why or what was in there). While I love a runner ideally this would’ve been a natural wood.
The stairs, underneath the carpet, were in great shape. The subfloor was good and they didn’t creak very much. The landing was fine, just needed some patching and a bit of restoration but I actually like the look of wobbly wood painted white in old houses. Great. So the decision was made and everyone agreed – just keep the wood stairs, the stringer, and the flooring on the landing and paint it.
This is after months of construction but as you can see it was in worse and worse condition.
Here’s a bit of the painted process:
The Painted Stairs
We chose the color Smoky Blue by Sherwin-Williams and we love it. Now in the grand scheme of things do I wish that we had wood stairs and wood floors instead of carpeted rooms? A tiny bit, but not very much. The cost difference was certainly not huge in comparison to the cost of the renovation so it just seems silly now that we tried to save money here. I truly do love the color and I love the wall-to-wall carpet – it’s very cozy, comfortable, and calming. Did painting the stairs instead of installing new stairs save us some money? Sure, but honestly probably just a couple thousand dollars in materials and a couple thousand in labor. Which isn’t nothing! If I could go back in time would I still make that choice? I honestly haven’t thought about it til this very second, which means I don’t really regret it. But sure, if I could snap my fingers I’d put that gorgeous Zena flooring everywhere and layer rugs.
I asked my painter what they used and how they did it and here’s what she said:
1. What kind of primer did we use on the stairs? We used Zinsser Cover Stain oil-based primer (Stain Blocker).
2. How many coats of primer were applied? 1 coat of primer.
3. How many coats of the TREAD-PLEX Waterborne floor coating will be applied? 1 light coat first, then 2 hours later we do a full coat of paint.
4. How will it be applied? Hand or Spray? Sprayed.
5. Do you do the tread and riser at the same time? If not, what order will they be painted in? Will the stringer be painted 1st? The stringer gets painted first, then once it is dry, we cover it up with masking paper. Once the stringer is completely covered, we start painting the stairs.
6. How long does it need to cure between coats? 2 hours.
The Real Question: How Has It Kept Up Since Moving In?
It’s only been since late August, so 3 months tops. We always knew that we were going to add a runner but it’s taken longer than I planned, so there are some tiny chips on the edges of the treads and hard-to-see cracks already due to a lot of wear and tear. I’m very excited to get the stair runner installed (we chose this one). Stay tuned!
*”Good Photos” By Kaitlin Green
THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.
