Sanding the stairs
Sanding the stairs took a lot longer than Kelly had been expecting, because of that stripe of varnish running down the center of the stairs, that had been under a runner at some point in the past.
It's like some kind of skunk staircase
Kelly started in on the sanding a few weeks back, but quickly discovered that the varnish was gumming up the sandpaper pads for the circular sander he had rented. The smaller palm sander that he owns worked better, but using the smaller sander was taking forever.
After a number of hours and many more sandpaper pads, Kelly took the advice of one of his coworkers and used a lacquer thinner to help strip off some of the thick lacquer so that the sanding could go quicker. And it did!
So here are a few pictures of the gorgeous raw wood.
And get this! The treads going around the corner are one solid piece of wood!
Up next: staining the wood…
February 16th, 2011 at 12:55 am
I love home improvement stuff, I wish your entries were a bit longer, they are such a tease! I want to see what happens!!!
February 16th, 2011 at 8:45 am
But it keeps you coming back!
Kidding. I’m mainly doing these shorter posts because that’s how we’ve been doing the project, one step at a time with a few days to a week in between steps. I just hadn’t dumped any pics from my camera in ages…
February 18th, 2011 at 8:54 am
I’m in a mid-way point at refinishing my stairs as well… Carpet is pulled up, but I have lots of paint on the edges – Kindof want to stain the tops and paint white risers (I think you said you were doing that too), but stripping the paint sounds like a nightmare.
If you get done the project and can’t wait to do some stairs again, let me know.