Oak Stair Staining Is one Major Home Improvement
One home improvement is oak stair staining or painting.
One of the largest house improvement with respect to interior decorating is to totally redo existing oak stairs steps and railings. Generally when people buy homes with oak stairs they don't elect to have them stained for one reason or another. It could be the cost or they're not sure what it would look like other than a natural wood finish. But down the road possibly years later they will want to get a different look for the central point of the home or the new home owner wants to change and do interior decorating of their new home.
A good quality solid oak hardwood stair treads and staircase is like a piece of furniture and is treated as such. And as you know many people take in the furniture to have them refinished. To get a more modern and updated look and sometimes actually make it look older than it really is with such things as chalk paint sort of faux finishing effect.
The oak stairs in this home had where marks on the stair treads. People that live here I presume used shoes to go up and down on the hardwood stair treads making them wear out quicker and wearing down the gloss finish. Nothing lasts forever and especially if you're walking on it all the time. In most homes they use soft slippers or socks to walk up wood stairs.
Home Subdivision Oak Stair Case
This staircase was your regular construction grade subdivision preparation. It is most probably had two coats of clear varnish or urethane installed. The first coat sanding sealer that would be of course sanded and then a topcoat of urethane. To make this type of finish look good though you need three coats of urethane to give the oak a deep and lustrous look which would not be in the budget on a subdivision type home unless it was paid for in an extra.
The black stairs
in these pictures were sanded down thoroughly with a course and a fine sandpaper. The coarse sandpaper was to remove varnish and when it was done and there were no more parts of the stairs that had varnish on them, then a lighter finer sandpaper was used to remove the scratches from the more coarse paper. When coarse sandpaper sands wood it leaves sometimes deep scratches depending on how coarse the grit was. When sanding wood it is always wise to re-sand with finer and finer grit papers untillall the scratches are gone.
Sanding Staircase
Now that all the sanding has been done it is time to clean off all the sanding dust. We used a shop vac to suck up all the sanding sawdust. We make sure that we got into all the corners get all the little bits of dust out from them. When you are brushing the urethane or varnish on to the hardwood stair treads you might pull out a little dust from the corners into the paint so make sure that all the corners are totally free of any dust.
Oak Staining or Painting Stair Railing
Of course you have to start from the top and work your way down. Generally, we start with painting the banister. The banister is the most time-consuming and difficult part of the staircase to paint. Here again make sure that all dust has been removed off everywhere on the picket so when you go to paint the picket you don't pick up any dirt particles. Painting the individual pickets should be done attempting to paint with one coat. Two light coats are better than one heavy. A light coat of paint dries faster and doesn't stay wet to attract more dust. When painting the pickets first of all the hardwood stair treads have to be protected. What we do is we put a rag at the base of the picket preventing any splatter or drops of paint or varnish. When you have painted the picket and used a small brush to finish off the ends of the baluster and your picket is now complete. You start from the top of the steps working your way down in step ensuring that painting of the steps and risers look good. No sags in the paint or drips or splatter on the hardwood stair treads. If you are staining the steps what we usually do at Mississaugahandyman painting services is we brush the stain and we use a rag to wipe it off as we go down the steps all looking back at the previous work making sure that is looking good as we proceed downwards.
Applying Urethane or Varnish
Nowadays urethane is used for floor finishing. Your thing can be purchased in a variety of different sheen levels everything from satin to gloss. Some people do not like shiny so they prefer to use a satin finish while others like to use very shiny finishes such as gloss urethane. The same procedure is involved in applying the varnish or urethane to the old stairs and steps. Moving down systematically watching as you are painting ensuring that you are not creating any runs or puddles of paint in corners. Here again it's advisable to put two or three light coats instead of one heavy coat. We usually send with a very fine sandpaper between coats and dusting with the tack cloth.
Finishing up Your House Improvement
The urethane on your oak stair depending on which brand you are buying can dry anywhere from an hour to several or even 24 hours dry time instructions for that particular brand.Now that you're home improvement is done with your staircase look your wall over check to see if there's any varnish or stained on it. You might want to put tape and cover the staircase if there is an extensive amount of re-painting of the walls.
Mississauga handyman
3778 Corliss Crescent
Mississauga, Ontario L4t2z5
Canada
Phone: (416) 568-3547
Email: expertpainter@gmail.com
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