I recently removed the carpet from my stairs and did some basic sanding and cleaning. I'm wondering if I can just sand them down more and then stain the wood, while painting the risers. There are some noticeable gaps, and I needed to hammer some nails back down, but they seem solid overall. Should I add some sort of tread on top for safety, or is sanding and staining enough?
3 Answers
Just a heads up—if you don’t add treads or something similar, you could end up slipping on the finished surface, which can be really dangerous. Just be careful!
You definitely can sand and stain them! They were probably meant to be carpeted, given the rough edges, but as long as the wood is solid and looks decent, you can finish them. Just be aware that finishing them won’t fix the imperfections completely, but it'll look way better than the carpet did, for sure. Using a good floor polyurethane will help protect them too.
Yeah, you can go ahead with sanding and staining. Just remember that without treads or a runner, the finished stairs might be a bit slippery and potentially dangerous. I had a similar situation before, and after some mishaps, we ended up getting a nice runner that covered most of the stairs while still looking good!