How To Install Stair Wainscoting How To' title='How To Install Stair Wainscoting How To' />The Down Dirty on the Stair Project. Heres how it all started. Ripping that carpet off, one step at a time. Unearthing all the ugliness that was hiding beneath. Our builder certainly never meant for these stairs to be shown, thats for sure. And like I mentioned, if I had any delusions of something nice lurking beneath this mess of carpet, that was quickly put to rest after the first couple of stairs. Ripping off the carpet and painting the stairs was the best decision I made. In fact, it just got worse, as I went down the stairs ripping that carpet and padding off. Like this gaping hole  I know, its really bad. So bad that I started to question my sanity. But, one thing Ive learned in the DIY world is this fact. Most anything can be improved upon by hiding it with molding or caulking with caulk and that was my motto here. Hide it, cover it up, or make it look better. Look at the ends of the stairs. Pretty darn bad, with all the carpet fuzz and the milllllllions of staples that were in here. That itself took awhile, just to get the staples pulled out. This wood was not meant to be seen either, so I had to cover it all up with molding. Evil, evil carpet tack strips. I pulled and tugged and finally got them all out of there. Using these tools. Dont even try this without safety glasses and leather gloves. I didnt have a crowbar or I would have used it. How about these lovely edges with drywall trapped inside. Is there any hope to beautify THIS  Well, yes there is. You see, I had a vision. Or maybe it was a nightmare after I saw what I was working with. First, I bought a nice hand sander and began sanding as much roughness as I could off all the stair treads and risers. Display Size Of Every Folder In Windows Explorer. I went through several pieces of heavy duty sandpaper and sanded them as good as I could. And no, they were not even smooth at this point either, but then came the wood filler putty. That works pretty good too for smoothing out holes and gaps in wood. Theres only so much you can do with rough raw wood like this, but paint works wonders too. I went back and resanded after I added the wood putty to all the holes and uneven gaps. So then began the process of covering all the ugly gaping holes with molding. I went to the store and bought about 3 or 4 kinds of molding, going back a couple of times when I fine tuned things a little more and figured out what all I needed. I started at the top, cutting those pieces to fit and used wood glue to hold them in place. Cause they are nothing but foam and could be cut with scissors. You gotta love molding you can cut with scissors. See, here it is.   It will splinter a little, but I made it work just fine. It was all I needed to cover underneath the stairs and on the sides to cover up the ugly holes and it was cheap. Cheap, I like for something like this. Held in place with blue tape til dry. Heres all the different size moldings I used, so you can be on the lookout for it as I explain it all. Some of this was leftover from other projects and some I bought. Left to Right 3 Reeded molding. MDF this is the one I cut with scissors12 shoe molding. NOCTI, and Nocti Business Solutions NBS, an NCCRS member since May 2012, is a leading provider of highquality technical competency assessment products and services. All of this was real wood molding, except that one piece. Someone asked if I have an an electric miter saw. NO  I wish I did and one of these days, I may have to break down and get one. I used a less than 1. It works fine, of course takes much longer than an electric one would. And I knew I would need some wider molding to cover the really BIG gaps, like this one that you see above. One nice piece of 3 reeded molding covered it right up. I had some of this leftover from another project, so I raided my extras for this and used up all my left over pieces. Used quarter round on the edges of the stair treads to cover more gaps. And you can see the big gap on either side of the stair nose. I knew I would have to cover that up, so thats what drove me to use a nice molding piece on each stair nose. It looked better AND it covered up that gap too. Youll see more of those down below. How To Install Stair Wainscoting How To' title='How To Install Stair Wainscoting How To' />Making progress all down the stairs, one at a time. Arent they starting to look beautiful now. Ha  Not yet, but were getting there. Now, this bottom part down on the edges of the stairs was the most challenging part. I knew Id have to cover the ugly down here and be creative about it too. Again, left over fluted molding was used as well as some of the quarter round I had bought. I figured it out as I went along and started with a small base piece of molding at the bottom. One good thing about the stair treads were that they were nice and thick. I figured out that I need to put some molding on the front of them to help hide gaps on either side of the stairs, so I found this flat piece that fit on there perfectly to make the stair treads look better AND hide the gaps on the sides. This is about 1 12 wide. I used wood glue AND finishing nails on these. While theyre short on space, these small bathrooms make the most of their size with interesting designs, features and storage solutions. Spring 2007 Update The evolving story of an ownerbuilt 14x24 Little House. Update 6212011 Click to see Ladder to Loft. Ive had a number of request for shots of. Working on the bottom 3 steps that had more molding to deal with. I just kept going, again figuring it out as I went along. I started with one layer and that wasnt looking so great, so I just added another layer on top and they started to look decent. Cut, glue and wait. All the way down. Getting there. Cut more, glue more, keep on going. Getting to the final part here, this was the last thing I did was figure out this corner. You can see I used all the leftover pieces I could find in the garage to make it all work. And it did  Once its all painted out with my white trim paint, it looks beautiful. When all the molding was in, it was time to caulk. Again, caulk hides a multitude of flaws. Its a DIYers best friend I used an entire large tube of caulk in my caulk gun on these stairs. How To Install Stair Wainscoting How To' title='How To Install Stair Wainscoting How To' />Caulk, caulk and more caulk hides all those seams and gaps. Another sanding and it was time to prime. Even the primer looks pretty good   I then painted all the white trim with my interior white trim semi gloss paint, letting it all dry overnight between coats. I figured it would be easier to do that first and then go back and do the stair treads black. One quart of black porch and floor paint was plenty for this project. I didnt even use 12 of this can. And I put on 3 coats, letting it all dry at least overnight in between. I used a small foam roller and a tiny craft brush to get around the edges by the white trim. Just a quick visual hereBEFOREAnd AFTER. Lots of difference between Before and After on this for sure These are SO not perfect, but unless your nose is right down here, it all looks great. From this BEFORE. And AFTER.   It IS pretty dramatic, huh  I still have to touch up my dark post railings at the bottom too, but Ill get to that. See, not perfect, but perfectly beautiful. And Im OK with NOT perfect, since its totally better than before. After 3 coats, the black painted stairs are done. You can see nails in the stairs. Theres just no way to completely cover them, since they are on each end and in the middle. So, that was one reason I decided to add a runner. That and the fact that I really love natural runners. But, really if you have steps that are in pretty good condition, I think the 2 3 coats of black porch paint look pretty fabulous too and I would not have had a problem leaving them like this. But, I like that extra touch that the runner added. And one final addition of molding here at the back of the stair treads. It was impossible to keep a straight line back here.