Stair Painting

When we decided to get our wood floors put in we knew we were also upgrading our molding. In order for everything to match I would have to paint the stair risers and runners after the treads were refinished. These ended up taking quite a bit more time than I had initially thought they would.

Starting out.

Had to set a couple of nails.

Prep work makes for a great paint job.

After taping up everything I sanded the risers and runners a bit so the paint would adhere better. I only had to take off a bit of the current finish and smooth any roughness left from the carpet staple removal I did back when we moved in. After wiping everything down with a tack cloth I put on one coat of oil based primer. Next was the paint.

Some paint.

All finished up.

I ended up applying three coats of paint on top of the primer to get full coverage of the original dark wood stain. This took me longer than I expected because there are so many nooks and crannies to get when painting stairs. I also caulked along the runners and walls to fill in a few gaps that were visible, probably from the house settling over the years. They weren't huge but the stairs look much better with them filled. I followed my normal procedure of running a thin bead along the joint and smoothing it over with a damp finger. Any little errors can be cleaned up with mineral spirits.