Everywhere around you can’t help but see fabulous images of newly decorated rooms, restored furniture and freshly painted walls. As beautiful as they are, I can’t help wonder – How do these gorgeous interiors actually hold up over time?
Don’t get me wrong, I love a great before & after or a creative makeover, but some of my favourite posts in Blogland are the ones about how these gorgeous spaces and projects are holding up and what these amazing interiors look like a month/ a year/ an excessive party later.
After all, if you are thinking about painting your floors white, installing expensive bookcases or purchasing a budget kitchen, don’t we all really want to know about how things are working out and holding up in everyday life?
A little over a year ago we shared the results of our epic DIY Edwardian staircase restoration with you.
We were really happy with how the stairs turned out, but after having our project featured on Apartment Therapy, we gained quite a bit of criticism, mainly saying that the staircase wouldn’t look good for long, as it would get a lot of scuffing, get very worn and need constant repainting, etc.
So, if all of you sceptics out there are considering stripping, staining and painting your wooden staircase, but are worried about how it will hold up, here’s how we are getting on with ours.
Dust
Yes – of course, we have dust on the treads, but it’s really nothing major. Anyone who has hard floors in their home will know that you occasionally end up with dust bunnies in the corners of the rooms, but they really couldn’t be easier to clean away.
All we occasionally do is wipe the stairs down with a Swiffer. In less than 2 minutes they’re clean again.
Scuffs, Scratches & Chips
None so far! In general don’t wear shoes in the house, so that the stair treads aren’t exposed to a lot of dirt and rough surfaces.
Having said that, when we had the wall between the kitchen and dining room removed we had a lot of builders going up and down the stairs for a few days, with their big and fairly dirty shoes on. They still held up fine. Absolutely no scuffs or chips on the treads and just minimal dirt on the risers which can easily be cleaned away.
Dirty Risers
No problem at all except for when the builders were in and left a few dirty marks with their boots. Luckily it was easy enough to wipe away and for the more stubborn marks we just used a magic eraser.
White Paintwork
Still white, still no chips. All we’ve done so far is give it an occasional wipe with a damp cloth.
All in all we couldn’t be happier with the result and with how the staircase still looks a year later. We definitely have no regrets in choosing the stained and painted finish.
If you followed our staircase restoration process, you’ll know that we were planning on installing a runner up the stairs. Our plans haven’t changed, it’s just taking a bit longer than expected, as we can’t have one installed until we’ve had the staircase to the loft installed.
Do you have varnished and painted stairs? If so, are you happy with them? Do you also wonder what projects look like after some real-life use?
I am fascinated by your article about your staircase, primarily because I assume you stained and varnished some parts, but painted all the rest because when the original staircase was stripped, it wasn’t possible to remove all of the original paint?
What I’d really like to know is what you did to all of the wood BEFORE you painted or stained any of it, should either you, or a future purchaser of your house wish to strip the stairs agai, to take all back to the original woodwork?
Put slightly differently, we have a pine (unpainted, but varnished) staircase that we’ve considered painting, but are concerned that should we not like the finish, the removal of paint might leave a residue in the wood’s grain that would be impossible to remove?! So do you have any tips (ie have you ever done anything like that, so know the best way to tackle our concerns?)
As to your staircase not having had any chips in the paintwork, dirt/dust on the treads/spindles etc, and not having to repaint frequently, I’d be most interested to know how many people (normally) live in the house, as well as whether you have any pets, teenage children, many visitors, whether everyone removes their shoes before going up/down the stairs, plus what type of vacuum cleaner you have, as having owned a house for some 20 years with an all white staircase, we’ve found that whilst feet aren’t the worst enemy for paint chips, vaccuum cleaners’ are, whilst the most “wear” is to the newel balls, where most people hold onto whilst going around “corners”. Also, most “dust” is produced from the carpet itself on the stairs, usually being transferred to between the staircase’s spindles (wiping the spindles when cleaning them seems to create a sort of electo-static charge to the paint, which then attracts the next lot of dust!)
The only comment I would add to the above, is that in the UK, most paint has moved away from being oil-based, to being water-based, and this has made a great difference to the need to have to repaint so often (it was the oil in the old-style paint that caused the yellow to appear)
That’s not to say that water-based paints diet have their own idiosyncrasies, but they have greatly improved, and I’m sure, wil continue to so do.
An interesting topic on an interesting blog. Thank you.
Staining and painting was purely a design choice. We removed almost all of the paint before hand (although not 100% as the plan had always been to paint it as it would have been originally). There are lots of links in the post that take you to the other posts where we shared the process of stripping the paint, staining the treads, etc. or you can just search for staircase restoration and you should find them, too. Removing the paint is an epic amount of work and, I’d only recommend painting a staircase if you’re sure that’s the look you’re going for. Oil-based paint can be stripped with a heat gun but water-based paint can’t. Apart from the fact that oil-based paint is still slightly more durable (this staircase is in the UK) the fact that it could be removed is another reason that we opted for it. We use a Kärcher vacuum cleaner throughout the house (and for all building work) which we still love.
Hope that helps.
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