BROWN PAPER BAG STAIRS

Those of you who are regulars here will remember my brown paper bag counter top (or brown contractors paper) that I recently did in our game room.  That was just a test of the whole process to see how it would turn out.  Today I am covering the steps of my front stairway with the brown paper.  To start, I tore all of the carpet up from the stairs.  It is pretty easy to get up and came off in nice even pieces (1 piece for each stair.)  I don't have any pictures of the stairs with carpet because I didn't think of taking them until after I had torn up all the carpet.  Some day I will get that part right.  I guess that is just my ADD taking over. lol

Stairs with carpet pad on them.

Next to go was the carpet pad.  This is what the stairs looked like with the carpet pad gone.  Same as the carpet.  Pretty easy to pull up except that it was stapled down in places so that it didn't tear up as evenly.  I had a lot of little pieces.   

To pull up all of the little staples I used needle nose pliers and for the tack strips I used a pry bar and a hammer to lift the nails out of the tack strips and remove them.  I also used my magnetic pin holder from my sewing box to help keep the tacks and nails together once they were removed.  It took a couple of runs for the staples because every time I thought I'd gotten them all I'd step on a new one!  What can I say - these old eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be.  The pictures above are the stairs bare no carpet, no pad, no tack strips and no staples (I think - ha ha).

The risers painted white and the treads sanded.

Second coat of Dover White

Next I sanded the stairs (risers and treads).  I painted all of the risers with Sherwin Williams Dover White paint in a semi-gloss. It took two coats of paint for me to be satisfied with the look.   I painted the risers (the front part of each stair) first so that I wouldn't get any paint on the treads once I had the paper down. 

Once the risers dried I went to work on the treads.  Same process as before.  I tore up the brown contractors paper (you can also use paper sacks from the grocery store - hence the name) into about 4" x 6" pieces.  Then I crumpled them all up into balls.  I made the glue mixture at a ratio of 2:1.  Two parts water to 1 part Elmer's glue.  I put several balls of paper into the glue mixture and worked them around.  You want to be sure to cover the entire piece of paper with the mixture.  I also found that the more you crumple the paper the more distressed they will look.  So really it is up to you how tight you want to crumple the paper. 

I squeezed the excess glue out of the paper and began laying them out in random overlapping patterns on each stair.  Be sure to press out any air bubbles that may form (and they will form).  I used my fingers to work them out.  Once all the stairs were coated I left them to dry overnight.

Then next day I taped off the risers so as not to get stain on them.  You may want to tape them off before you even begin laying the paper on them as the glue mixture can drip down the front of them.  I just kept a bowl of water and damp rag nearby and wiped up any drips as they happened.  Once the stairs were taped off I proceeded with staining them.  I used a red oak stain by Minwax same as with the counter top.  I wiped it on each stair and then let them dry.  Since the two landing stairs were planks of wood I did not paper them.  I used two coats of stain on the landing stairs.  I allowed everything to dry overnight again.  The next step was to apply polyurethane.  I ended up doing 8 coats on the stairs.  These are our front stairs which are the first thing you see when you open the front door so I wanted to be sure they were protected and would look fresh for a long time to come.  Once each coat had dried I added another coat of polyurethane on all the treads and another and another.........you get the idea.  I only used two coats of poly on the landing stairs.

Once everything dried the stairs were good to go.  This is what they looked like.  I think they turned out great.  Best of all - I now have NO wall to wall carpet anywhere in my house!  Sure it is more work because the dirt shows now more quickly but it is so worth it.  No more vacuuming the stairs! Yea!  Even better is that I already had all the supplies on hand so there was no money spent for this project!!!!! I think I even heard my husband yell whoop whoop on that one!

If you try this project please e-mail me and send me before and after pictures.  If I get enough different projects, I will do a special post featuring every ones  work.

Susan