Help, my stairs are yellow!

[Bonkers2011]

Hi, i hope someone can help.
I removed the carpet from my stairs and i thought it would be a good idea to varnish the treads.
It took me such a long time to remove old paint and prepare them. I then chose ronseal medium oak floor varnish. I tried on one step and it was far too dark. So i bought antique pine and my tester step looked good.
So i varnished the whole lot. I am so upset with how they look.
Does anyone have any advice?

[user1491572121]

I think a better approach is a nice whitewash. Varnish is very dated....all you can do is strip them and start again.

[Bonkers2011]

Thank you, i never considered whitewash i will have a look into this. The stairs are open tread.

[FadedRed]

If I were you I would live with it for a while, maybe a month or two, as it is likely that the wood will darken now it is exposed to light. If after that time you still don't like it then have a rethink.

[Floggingmolly]

I'd redo them white, too. All natural pine varnish eventually turns orange, it's really vile.

[Bonkers2011]

I have just looked at a few pictures of whitewashed stairs and they look lovely. At the moment i have laminate down stairs. I think the white wash will work better with this.

[user1491572121]

Yes, whitewash looks lovely and fresh. You can do it yourself quite easily too...there are lots of tutorials on Youtube OP.

[Bonkers2011]

Thank you, i have been looking into how to do this. I didn't think to look at you tube.

[PanannyPanoo]

if you don't want to remove the varnish and start again you can get varnish in a whitewash colour. ronseal do one. just add a coat or 2 to the existing varnish.

[bilbodog]

Weve painted our stairs with an off white tread and different coloured risers using the colours left over from the rest of the house - subtle F & B colours, greens, yellows and blues. Looks lovely. Ive seen some done with wallpaper on the risers as well. Google painted stairs/images.