varnish or paint stairs

[mickman]

hi
i was going to varnish my stairs during the summer , there is carpet on the steps so its just the sides and bannister etc. i was in a show house yesterday and saw that they had painted the sides white and had used a darker kind of varnish on the rail. has anyone done this b4 and would they recommend it?

 

[wishbone]

We varnished ours, no white, in fact we had to painstakingly remove the white paint that was there after we removed the carpet. We had it like that for 10 years, never touched it up, and it lasted well. Got carpet put in there last year just cause we had one kid fall down the stairs on her back, she got nasty bruises on her spine from the wood, thankfully fine, so if you've kids, I'd go for carpet.

 

[mickman]

where was the white paint after you removed the carpet??? when you were doing the hand rail, did you sand it or just use steel wool

 

[Leo]

I did something similar recently, with cream on the sides and chocolate brown on the base rail and hand rail. The balusters are oak, so I'm oiling those. Looks good, but there's a lot of extra care and thus time required in keeping the paint/stain to the desired areas.
Leo

 

[briancbyrne]

did this recently and used brilliant white gloss paint and have carpet laid.- looks the business - but its a matter of taste and you have to put on a min of 3 coats

 

[wishbone]

where was the white paint after you removed the carpet???

White paint was along either side of the carpet ie carpet width was a little narrower than the stair width, so they painted white gloss on that skinny strip either side. If I remember correctly - it was a while ago, we scratched a good bit off with a triangular tool and then sanded the rest, we sanded the whole step.

when you were doing the hand rail, did you sand it or just use steel wool

We didn't do the handrail as it was one of those plasterboard handrails (old house) which we removed and put in a new (wooden) spindle bannisters which we varnished. The wood bit at the bottom where the spindles sit into (not very good at the right terms of course!) we painted white. So we had wooden steps, wooden spindle bannisters (incl handrail) but white between the stairs and the spindles, hope that makes sense.

 

[mickman]

if u go white paint though, you can never again varnish them i presume???