The Epic DIY Staircase Restoration

I had wanted to wait until we had finished this mammoth task, but as usual, I’m a bit too impatient, so here’s a quick update on the current hallway and DIY staircase restoration situation.

Just as a reminder, this is what it looked like when we moved in – still can’t get over the brown walls and green ceiling. Definitely a unique style!

We already told you about some of our prep work and stripping and sanding endeavours here.

We had really only planned on restoring the balustrades and handrail for now, but it’s almost impossible to remove all the paint with the carpet in the way, so I ended up getting slightly carried away and started on the stairs, too.

These are the first few steps so far.

Doesn’t really look any better, does it? You can see there must have been a runner on the stairs at some point. There’s a lot of paint on the risers and treads, which means more heat gun action and lots more sanding.

This is what the half-landing looks like at the moment.

You can see that I’ve already started to sand one half and the other is still dark and gunky.

Looking up from the ground floor, the stairs don’t actually look that much different.

But you’ll just have to believe us that it’s taken months to get to this stage. We have stripped all of the paint on the wood panelling along the side of the stairs and almost finished stripping and sanding the balusters.

We’ve started thinking about finishes now that we are getting nearer to completion.

The plan had always been to stain the treads the same colour as the handrail and paint the risers white, but now we are unsure. We’d like to keep the landing on the first floor the natural wood colour and are concerned that it would look weird having dark treads and a light floor.

What do you think? Stained treads, natural coloured treads or white painted treads? Let us know what you think!