When we first moved into the farmhouse, the stairs were in pretty bad shape. And by bad shape, I mean they were really ugly. There clearly had been a runner on the stairs that was pulled up, and the remaining white paint left something to be desired.
So, painting the stairs was actually the first thing on our to-do list. We got started pretty much the day we closed on the house - we figured it would be better to paint the stairs before tons of critters (namely our 4 cats and 1 dog) were in the place. We started painting despite the fact that we didn't even have power in the house... fortunately it was the beginning of summer. Still not too hot but very bright!
We spent a ton of time sanding down the stairs a bit and then cleaning them up. We discussed filling in the divets and dents and nail holes from the historic runner with wood putty to make the stairs perfect and flat before painting them, but then we said SCREW IT! We didn't buy a 101 year old house so it would look brand new! These dents have charm! (this could also be interpreted as: we were just too lazy).
We meticulously taped all of the stairs. Then I just had to slather the brown paint on. Again, we used the Behr Ultra Paint + Primer in 1. No particular reason. I just like it.
After painting the stairs, we took some time to get the bannister and the top rail, to complete the look. We also painted the stair faces and crown molding white, to make them look clean and pop.
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| the final product |
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| from the top of the stairs |
The stairs actually got a little knicked and banged up when we moved in and hiked furniture up this squeaky set of old (and surprisingly narrow) stairs. In that respect, it would have been better to wait until post furniture move-in to paint, but we plan on getting a carpet runner, so we weren't too worried about it!
