painting wooden stairs

[Imlostwithoutahope]

Hi,

I have wooden open tread stairs. They're a dark pine colour.
I want to paint them a light cream colour.
Has anyone dine this and what's the best paint to use? I've read online. To use floor paint or gloss.

Is the f&b floor paint hardwearing enough?
Thanks

[NickNacks]

Won't it be really noisy?

[soonbesailing]

Yes floor paint will be fine F&B will be hard wearing enough if you prep undercoat/prime then top coat (2 of each) the good thing about F&B is it is water based so quick drying times between coats.

You could use little Greene which is oil based, or designers guild do a water based floor paint as well.

It will not be any mor noisy than it is being open tread pine.

[NickNacks]

Sorry I didn't read op properly. I see you already have non carpeted stairs!

[halfnhalf]

we've painted stairs in white gloss. The only problem is that they are slippery (we're about to repaint in special floor paint) and, unless the condition of the stairs are perfect, dirt collects in all the cracks and splits in the wood and it doesn't look v. good.

[Jacaqueen]

We did this 5 years ago.

After much debate we used normal water based satinwood type paint. Dulux heritage range i think. This was because I wanted the stairs to match the other paintwork in the hall, especially the skirting boards. It is a Victorian house with a long hall, half landing then top hall. The staircase splits off in different directions. We then used a top coat of clear matt varnish to seal and protect.

It still looks good. The varnish did not go yellow and the stairs are not slippy.

[sayanything]

Can I hijack and ask, did you also paint the landing or just the stairs?

[Jacaqueen]

Just the stairs.

But this caused much debate!

When we moved into the house we sanded and stained all the floors ourselves. The stairs were in really bad condition so we painted the riser and the sides but varnished the treads in a really dark oak.

A few years later we decided to get all the floors done professionally. What a difference that made. But it was going to cost too much to get the stairs done so we just repainted the stairs but this time including the tread because the floors were going to be a much lighter French oak colour.

I was worried that it would be too much paint on show so decided to treat the landing as an extension of the hall floor and had it varnished too. I think this was the right decision but it would be easy enough to sand and paint it if I wanted a change.

Do you have wooden floors or carpet on the landing?

[sayanything]

We are renovating a 1900 house (we're in Brussels, it's a standard town house). The entrance hall still has the lovely original tiled floor and we are stripping the horrid lino floor on the upstairs landing to get to the wooden floor underneath. The stairs are currently painted a rather startling blue and it'll cost a bomb to have them stripped and sanded. We can't do it ourselves as they are painted in some incredibly thick paint that will take an enormous amount of hours to get rid of, so we'll just paint them a more reasonable colour. Thanks for the information, I'm also inclined to leave the upstairs landing unpainted.

[Imlostwithoutahope]

Our floors downstairs is oak flooring and the upstairs carpeted. I think because the stairs are hardwood they aren't that noisy(unless I clink upstairs in my heels) if I had my way I would board them in and then get a Coordinated runner but dh won't let me and as they are so dark they darken the downstairs so I thought I would have a go at painting.
I don't know now if I should go with satin and varnish or use f&b floorpaint

[digerd]

I was going to say that the risk is the stairs being too slippery, but already a post saying theirs were. We had wooden open staircase, with wrought iron carved railings and it looked lovely, but I wanted DH to put carpet pieces on as found them a bit dangerous

[OlyRoller]

Be careful in your socks - or put some sand in your paint. They can be dangerous - especially if you're carrying a baby. But I am in Amsterdam and the stairs are treacherous anyway.

[Imlostwithoutahope]

Don't worry, they're just varnished now so were used to them being slippery. We did get a fall mind when dh auntie decided to polish them when we were away.
So what's best satinwood/varnish or floor paint? I'm going to do them this weekend.

[midseasonsale]

We used floor paint and it's not slippy. It's a bugger to keep clean with the animals though!