Refinishing an Hardwood Staircase

This is an adventure in refinishing my hardwood staircase, told by an amateur artist and homeowner. This may not be how the pros would do it, but it's done for about $150 in materials and a few days of my time.

We floundered a bit in figuring it out, but here I'll share the things I've figured out. Most of this uses low-odor quick-drying options, because I'm working in a house with small children in wintertime. (They're not home while I'm working, but they need to sleep here at night.)

Tools and Materials:

+ orbital hand sander (or two)
+ plastic drop cloth
+ safety goggles
+ dust masks (buy a multi-pack)
+ ear plugs
+ vinyl-palmed work gloves
+ vinyl or latex disposable gloves
+ cheap throw-away paintbrush for chemical paint stripper
+ paint scraper
+ screwdriver
+ hammer
+ small wood chisel
+ 2.5" angled natural bristle paintbrush
+ small paint tray
+ 40 grit sanding pads (be sure to get the right size pads with the right number of holes - they're for ventilation and your sander will overheat without the right ones) I used about 15 pads for 14 steps and a landing
+ 40 or 60 grit sandpaper and a sanding block, if desired
+ 2" wide painters tape
+ spool of cotton twine
+ Hi-Speed Ready Strip Citrus Paint & Varnish Remover (this project used one half gallon jug)
+ MinWax Wood Finish (this project uses 2 qt sized cans of golden pecan stain) 
+ low-odor mineral spirits
+ MinWax Water Based Polyurethane for Floors (this project uses one gallon of clear satin finish poly)

Here you see the old staircase. Someone had painted that beautiful wood a chocolate brown when the house was built. It was old and dingy and banged up. The dark color robbed the stairwell of all light, making it a dark area even in midday.

Step 1: Stripping the old paint, part 1: chemical stripper

After spending too much time on the first step, trying to sand away many layers of 30 year old chocolate brown stairs, along with the knicks and dents in the wood, we got smart and used a chemical paint stripper. Many of the "safer" ones say they work in as little as four hours, but I chose Back to Nature brand Hi-Speed Ready-Strip which says it works in about a half an hour. The half gallon container was more than enough.

1. Open your windows and turn on a fan. It might be "low-odor and environmentally safe", but it stinks.
2. Shake the bottle really well - it's very separated.
3. Pour some liquid onto the top step. Using a cheap paintbrush, spread over the step in a thick layer. Make sure to get the corners and edges well.
4. Move down the steps to the bottom, and throw away your paintbrush, then find something else to do for about 2 hours. I started the bottom step after a half an hour, and worked my way back up. But during the rest of the paint removal process, the upper stairs that had had the stripper on them for about three hours took a third of the time it took to remove the paint from the lower steps.
5. Using a paint scraper, scrape across the step with the grain of the wood. The old polyurethane comes up with the stripper goo. Wipe the goo off of the scraper, and continue (don't bother trying to rinse it off). I scraped it into an old shoe box, but where doesn't really matter. Scraping takes off most of the stripping agent, I didn't bother to wipe off the remaining.

These steps are old and dinged up, and the dark stain penetrated into the wood, and it's imperfections. I was removing the many layers of old poly with the chemicals in order to get closer to the wood and to get started. The picture here shows the stairs AFTER the chemical stripper was scraped off. It was only the first step of removing the old color, but it made the rest of the project move much more quickly. The time (a day) and cost of the stripper was less than the time and cost of using sanding pads to get through that old poly. Not to mention - much easier on my back. I wore work gloves for all of this step, I really didn't get any on myself.

Comments

[blounsb999]

I have sanded floors professionally in the past. If you end up doing this again, or for those who read this and want to tackle this themselves - forget the chisel, get a good ol' Red Devil scraper. 1 1/2 inch blade (just the blade and make your own handle if you have to, that what we did and do). You will get much better results.
60, 80, 100 ARE finishing grits when it comes to floor sanding. Forget what the salespeople try to sell you.

[moonshine1993]

We just bought an older house (early 1900's) and I want to do the very same thing to the stairs and the whole house. Thank-you for the excellent instructions!! This will make my job much easier. Thanks again!!

[jadronx]

Nice job...Im impressed, most women I know would never dream of tackling a job like this with no xp and no backup help, well my sis-inlaw would but would then get me and my bothers to finish and correct ;) Im planing on doing my mother's stairs since we just painted the hallway. Again, nice job and keep it up!

[falling_stone]

great project! looks great!

[KittyJ]

As a postscript:
The staircase no longer squeaks like it did. Nearly all of the steps squeaked quite loudly before. Now there is only one squeak on one part of the landing, and none on the stairs at all!
I do not have an explanation for this, but it is an interesting bonus!

[cobourgdave]

Nice job, you should be quite happy with the results. I agree with your choice of the MiniWax poly, it does a nice job. Frankly you have a lot of courage and clearly lots of tenacity tackling those stairs. Your method of packing the old strip flooring with cotton strings is quite innovative. I hope it works well for you. Congratulations for a job well done and a nice clear instructable.

[KittyJ]

Thank you very much!