Restoration of a 100 year old stairway

Background: This is a project at the house I grew up in that my mom still owns and lives in. It is a 2 family home, with a nearly identical apartment on each floor. Since I was about 10 years old (am 40 now) I have taken on many projects here, with each one becoming more complex and involved than the last. This stairway restoration happened in tandem to me gutting the 2nd floor kitchen and rebuilding it with custom cabinets, which I will share in a future post. These projects were part of an even larger project that began in the summer of 2024 where I took on re-wiring the entire second floor to remove all knob and tube wiring, and bring it up to modern electrical codes. The stairway was in need of some serious TLC. It hadn't been painted since probably the 1990s, and even that was really not a very well done job. My goal was to restore the stairway to a look that I believed may have been how it looked when the house was new in 1925. A huge priority for me was to find an antique period correct-ish light fixture and move it to a central location over the stairway as a focal point. I was able to find this fixture through a friend's father who has bought and sold antique lighting for 40+ years. The Process: The walls we originally wallpapered over the bare plaster with seams that overlapped by about an inch. I had no desire to remove the wallpaper because I knew it was under several layers of paint, which I feared could be lead based, so decided instead to skim coat the walls to hide the paper seams and establish a new fresh surface. Side note, I did have the paint that covered the floor tested for lead before sanding the floors, and that paint tested negative for lead. I patched any large holes first, taped any cracks, and put metal backed corner bead on all corners both inside and outside. I then sealed the entirety of the room using BIN primer. I chose BIN for the high hiding of stains and also that it dries nearly instantly due to being shellac and alcohol based. I feared that if I brought a lot of moisture into the walls I would disturb the wallpaper too much and get unwanted bubbling/peeling (spoiler alert, it wasn't perfect as planned). After the BIN, I did two skim coats of joint compound on everything, followed by another coat of BIN to seal things back up, and finally two coats of paint. I also used BIN on all the stair parts to hide the dark green paint from the 90s. Weeks before starting I dreamt up the idea of building that platform to reach the highest areas. Because I'd be spending over a week in that highest section I figured the cost and time to assemble that platform would more than justify it versus working off of an extension ladder and feeling unsafe the whole time. From start to finish I spent about 6 weeks in this space, mostly nights and weekends. The major challenge was constantly battling the wallpaper. Even though I sealed everything up first, I still had many areas that bubbled or peeled after a coat of joint compound or a coat of paint. I ran dehumidifiers throughout the whole process to keep the moisture to a minimum, but there really was no magic bullet. When an area did bubble up, I would peel and scrape off as much paper as possible right down to the plaster, seal the bare spot with BIN, compound, sand, and move on. I am really proud of how it turned out and hoping I don't need to do anything else out there for at least my lifetime. Walls: Benjamin Moore Weston Flax. Railings: Benjamin Moore Bittersweet Chocolate. Trim and Stair Parts: Benjamin Moore Simply White submitted by /u/shawnot [link] [comments]

May 26, 2025 - 01:26

Background: This is a project at the house I grew up in that my mom still owns and lives in. It is a 2 family home, with a nearly identical apartment on each floor. Since I was about 10 years old (am 40 now) I have taken on many projects here, with each one becoming more complex and involved than the last. This stairway restoration happened in tandem to me gutting the 2nd floor kitchen and rebuilding it with custom cabinets, which I will share in a future post. These projects were part of an even larger project that began in the summer of 2024 where I took on re-wiring the entire second floor to remove all knob and tube wiring, and bring it up to modern electrical codes.

The stairway was in need of some serious TLC. It hadn't been painted since probably the 1990s, and even that was really not a very well done job. My goal was to restore the stairway to a look that I believed may have been how it looked when the house was new in 1925. A huge priority for me was to find an antique period correct-ish light fixture and move it to a central location over the stairway as a focal point. I was able to find this fixture through a friend's father who has bought and sold antique lighting for 40+ years.

The Process: The walls we originally wallpapered over the bare plaster with seams that overlapped by about an inch. I had no desire to remove the wallpaper because I knew it was under several layers of paint, which I feared could be lead based, so decided instead to skim coat the walls to hide the paper seams and establish a new fresh surface. Side note, I did have the paint that covered the floor tested for lead before sanding the floors, and that paint tested negative for lead.

I patched any large holes first, taped any cracks, and put metal backed corner bead on all corners both inside and outside. I then sealed the entirety of the room using BIN primer. I chose BIN for the high hiding of stains and also that it dries nearly instantly due to being shellac and alcohol based. I feared that if I brought a lot of moisture into the walls I would disturb the wallpaper too much and get unwanted bubbling/peeling (spoiler alert, it wasn't perfect as planned). After the BIN, I did two skim coats of joint compound on everything, followed by another coat of BIN to seal things back up, and finally two coats of paint. I also used BIN on all the stair parts to hide the dark green paint from the 90s.

Weeks before starting I dreamt up the idea of building that platform to reach the highest areas. Because I'd be spending over a week in that highest section I figured the cost and time to assemble that platform would more than justify it versus working off of an extension ladder and feeling unsafe the whole time.

From start to finish I spent about 6 weeks in this space, mostly nights and weekends. The major challenge was constantly battling the wallpaper. Even though I sealed everything up first, I still had many areas that bubbled or peeled after a coat of joint compound or a coat of paint. I ran dehumidifiers throughout the whole process to keep the moisture to a minimum, but there really was no magic bullet. When an area did bubble up, I would peel and scrape off as much paper as possible right down to the plaster, seal the bare spot with BIN, compound, sand, and move on.

I am really proud of how it turned out and hoping I don't need to do anything else out there for at least my lifetime.

Walls: Benjamin Moore Weston Flax. Railings: Benjamin Moore Bittersweet Chocolate. Trim and Stair Parts: Benjamin Moore Simply White

submitted by /u/shawnot
[link] [comments]