DIY Staircase Makeover

Who could've guessed my humble hallway would generate so much chat?!

After 10 million views on Instagram, followed by another 2 million views on a follow up reel, alongside 3 million Tiktok views and 1 million Pinterest views… and many more, well, I figured it was high time I wrote a blog post about my staircase makeover! #viral #diy #staircase

Here I’ll talk through what I did, what set backs I had and what I would change if I did a project like this again. Spoiler alert - I’d pay someone to do it for me!

8 Weeks!

I don’t mind sharing with you that this was a very extensive, time-consuming and exhausting project. At the time, I had a full time job and so I could only work on it at weekends. I think you will agree spending every spare moment you have on something like this can take the fun out of it, so I gave myself a few weekends off too. So all in all, it was about 10-12 days of work. Not bad for a newbie.

It’s all in the prep

As with all DIY projects, the prep work takes a long time and is so important, setting you up for success for the whole project - or perhaps your downfall if you don't do it right!

We ripped up the carpet and used a crowbar to lever up the carpet grips. This was the quickest part of the whole project.

"there were always so many clusters of staples"

But then came the staples. My oh my the staples! If you know, you know! I picked up a pair of pliers and manually pulled, eased, and levered up the 100s of staples. At least, it felt like 100s. And don’t forget all of the corners and edges of the steps, and the bits that were under each of the lips of the steps… there were always so many clusters of staples in these areas! And just when you think you’ve got the last one, you suddenly spot 3 or 4 more!

With every staple you remove, there are 2 holes to fill in. And they are so difficult to see!

Top Tip

I’ve seen a trick that other people have done: they prime the steps which helps them to see the holes for filling with wood filler. I didn’t do this, purely because my paint was self priming so it didn’t make sense. I would definitely do this, however, if I were using a different paint.

Top Tip

One little trick with wood filler, when you apply it leave it for about an hour and then wipe your hand over it to gently remove the residue rather than waiting for it to dry fully and have to sand it down.

Then comes the sanding - and wear a mask!!

This by far was the least pleasant part of the project. It took forever, it was incredibly messy, I got completely covered in dust as did the rest of the house even though all of the doors were closed. I have a little tip on how to reduce the amount of dust towards the end - it’s quite a shocker!

"I have a little tip on how to reduce the amount of dust towards the end - it’s quite a shocker!"

A lot of people ask me why I sanded off dark coloured paint to then repaint black. Well the answer is that when we moved in four years ago I painted the banister, just the banister, in a glossy brown paint. For this project, I decided that I wanted the banister to match the colour of the steps and I wanted it to be a black matt paint. So I was using a completely different paint that I wanted to match up with something else.

Not only that, but you need to sand your surfaces properly before painting. A lot of people have disagreed with me about this point on TikTok and Instagram, but the best practice really is to sand down the surface and then prime and paint, unless you are using self priming paint of course. You can do a light sand and paint over the top of paint but this may cause issues further down the line.

Have you ever seen any of those videos of people using a heat gun and scraping off layers of paint? Well that’s what you would have to do in the future, or if not you then someone else and they will not thank you for it.

"the best practice really is to sand down the surface and then prime and paint, unless you are using self priming paint"

Painting over paint, is also not completely fool proof anyway. If you paint over paint, you risk it scratching off as the new paint struggles to adhere to the surface. What's more, you get a pretty poor finish, even if you do use a good primer to make it stick.

So all in all, short-term pain of just sanding the old paint off will save you trouble in the long-term.

After all that sanding, the house was a complete mess and covered in dust. This was where we took a bit of a break in the middle of the eight week stint. We spent quite a lot of time not just cleaning the hallway and landing, but also cleaning the rest of the house and making sure that the whole house was dust free. Who wants to paint when there is dust floating in the air? It would be a blimmin nightmare!

Then the fun bit!

The painting is the fun bit of any job. You might think that this is also the easiest bit. Of course not! Painting staircases means that you actually have to really think about what you’re painting and when. You really do have to plan.

Top Tip

I painted every other step so that we could still use the stairs whilst allowing the paint to dry in between each of the coats.

This is another reason why the project took such a long time, as we needed to do 3 coats of paint for alternate steps followed by 3 coats of paint on the other half of the steps

So after all that time and effort, what would I change?

Dip my hands in paint!

I would use the sock technique for the spindles - but I’d switch this out for a rubber glove with a wool glove on top.

If you haven’t heard of the sock technique trend, it’s all over Tiktok but it hasn’t appeared on Instagram or Pinterest yet. The idea is to wear an old sock on your hand, one that you don’t mind ruining, and dip it in the paint. This makes painting spindles quick and easy without accidentally flicking paint everywhere.

"Wear an old sock on your hand, one that you don’t mind ruining, and dip it in the paint. This makes painting spindles quick and easy without accidentally flicking paint everywhere"

Something that slowed me down during this project was trying my best to avoid my brush flicking paint as I painted around the awkward edges of the spindles. The sock technique supposedly stops this straight away. But it must be awfully messy… so I would suggest wearing a surgeons glove with a wool glove on top.

Attach your sander to a hoover!

If you’re anything like me, then you’ve probably already done a few DIY projects before realising that the little hole at the end of your sander is designed to attach to a hoover to help collect all the dust as you go. I’ve mentioned this a few times and people are always absolutely amazed! I’m not surprised that no one seems to know about it - 16 million views and not one person mentioned that I should have attached the sander to the hoover!

When I did the stairs, there was a lot of dust in the air for days!

I think it would be worth every penny if you don’t have a Henry hoover already, to invest in one and make sure that your sander has the correct section to attach it to. Our normal hoover was just a bit too awkward for wheeling around as we tried to sand but a Henry hoover should give you a bit more ease in movement.

Seal the sealant

Add a topcoat, even though this was self priming and self sealing paint, the priming side of it seems to have worked perfectly as there’s no flaking. I find, however, that I’m constantly inspecting the stairs so for peace of mind and to stop me worrying so much about potentially marking the stairs, a topcoat would help

That covers all the most asked questions and all my top tips! My final Tip of the Day:

Pay someone else to do it!