Staircase, Steps and Stairwell, Finishing all of the Painting

Painting out a staircase is generally not a terrible job but that’s normally because you can start at the top lol. In this case though if I had painted my way from the top to the bottom I would have been stuck in the basement for a couple of days waiting for the paint to dry. Rustoleum is an oil based paint so it takes a LONG time to dry. I went back and forth in my head about the concrete walls of this stairwell. Initially I was leaning toward covering them with sheetrock but after awhile that just seemed over board.

The floors in our basement are black painted concrete so there really isn’t anything about this stairwell also being black painted concrete that would be odd at all.

There is a clear separation between the upper walls and the concrete (they don’t line up) which made it a really natural decision to embrace the difference.

White on top.

Black on concrete.

So I had a lot more painting to do in this stairwell.

Lodi has wanted to replace this staircase for awhile now because its old, rough and ugly. I told him he can go ahead and do that any time he wants but I’m moving forward with this in the interim.

I’m going to paint it out then cover the existing steps with carpet. There’s hundreds of really affordable choices out there now on Amazon – here is the pack of 15 carpet treads that I got for only $30!

They’re going to make this long staircase so much safer and they’ll save the paint on the steps from wear and tear too.

And when I say “safer” I don’t just mean as padding if you take a tumble I mean it also makes the steps themselves a lot more visible!

Honestly Lodi’s idea of natural wood steps would be gorgeous here with the risers and rest of the stairwell painted black. With how affordable this all was though we can still totally do that some day.

Meanwhile, this was a big job.

Rustoleum is a hard paint… its more the consistency of glue so to really get it on there and into the cracks requires a lot more muscle than painting with acrylic.

I did what I could with the roller and then edged and touched up a few days later with a brush.

The step treads I purchased had real adhesive backing (some of them are just rubber and not damaging) but I was comfortable using them here because, well, its an old staircase lol.

The likely hood is that its next phase it will be getting replaced so… a little adhesive wasn’t going to bother much.

A HUGE perk that I should have anticipated, but never even thought about, was just how much quieter the stairs are to use now. It no longer feels cold an echoey, we can actually use them without making a ton of noise like we used to.

My gosh this stairwell took me forever but the difference is amazing!

Next up, we need a new handrail!