Stripped stairs have ended up not even, gutted, is a runner the only option?

[Lambzig]

When we took the carpet off our stairs, the previous owners had obviously had a runner at some point as there was white gloss paint running down each side of the stairs leaving a bare wood strip in the middle. We used the genius peelaway stuff and it removed all the layers of paint easily, but the wood strip in the middle was left much darker than the bits where paint had been removed.

We had wanted to have just stripped wood.

DH took the day off yesterday to sand them down and spent most of yesterday with a belt sander, but the middle bit is still darker.

Does anyone know if we can try anything else or should we give up and buy a runner?

We would need plain carpet as we have patterned tiles in the hall and I haven't seen that anywhere.

I don't want to buy the cladding as at some point we will get the banisters replaced, so it wouldn't make sense to do it now.

Can you stain them at all?

Could you lighten the darker bits with oxalic acid?

A plain runner will look much better than stripped wood!

Just stain it all a darker colour. Bare stripped wood will mark very quickly.

is it not very loud going up and down stairs with bare wood?

And splinters!

I wanted to Polyx oil them to protect the wood, but use clear. I could stain, but the colour difference is so big, I am not sure that would work.

I will try the oxalic acid. Maybe a runner would be nice, although there is no carpet anywhere else in the house.

Confused by the splinters comment. Sanded and oiled it's just like a wooden floor.

I thought it might be noisy, but the carpet has been up for about five weeks and it doesn't seem to be.

Could you use Colron wood dye to dye the pale areas the same colour as the darker ones?

I think we would have to go very dark with the wood stain to get it even and that really wouldn't go with the tiles we are getting. We stripped it all because the banisters had been varnished in a really dark shade and as it's quite an ugly fifties staircase, we wanted to lighten it all.

I will try the acid but otherwise I think we are going to have to go for a runner in one of the colours in the tiles, probably the burnt orange. Now where on earth can I buy a plain burnt orange stair runner from?

Thanks for the help.

we've painted out stairs and done the risers in all different pale shades that we have used in the rest of the house - it looks great. The other thing is to deliberately leave it the 2 colours - perhaps paint a line down where the 2 colours join to make it a feature?

Roger Oates does gorgeous runners, here's an orange one. www.rogeroates.com/products/runners/multi-bright/dart-persimmon/

That is gorgeous. I am not sure we can get away with any other pattern at all as the tiles are a vibrant pattern.

I've seen painted runners - you could Google for some photos?

You can get a strip of normal carpet bound at the sides. Either whip-stitched or with tape.

Lovely, but I suspect way beyond my skill set Before we decided on the ludicrous patterned hall tiles that cost more than the house and everyone but me and DH pulls a face at, we were going to paint the risers in Pantone shades, it can look stunning.

In that case, paint the whole staircase then.