Our Staircase Renovation

Our staircase remodel is probably one of the most asked about renovations that we’ve completed in our home, so today I thought I’d share some details about this renovation along with all of the sources we used. Overall, this was one of the more expensive renovations we’ve done in our home, mainly due to the cost of the supplies that are required for this type of project. But another big factor is that we hired a contractor to do most of the renovation, since some of the materials used are custom made and expensive, and the cost of mistakes made would be high.

Here are a few before images of the space.

As you can see, we only had railings on the first half of the staircase, and the second half was just drywall. This made the space very dark and the half wall wasn’t doing justice to the layout of the stairs. I knew this could be a wonderful focal point since it’s in the center of our home, so I felt that the investment in the renovation would really make an impact and would be more in line with the rest of the renovations we had planned.

We had our contractor take out the half wall, and we carried our flooring, Johnson Hardwood British Isles Series in Essex, all the way up the treads. We purchased our flooring from our local Pro Source, and they were able to order custom coordinating stair noses from a third party they worked with. These were one of the materials that were very expensive, so we didn’t want to risk making any wrong cuts and having to waste material. Our carpenter took off all of the original stair treads and cut the old noses off, and then reinstalled with liquid nails and brads to keep them from squeaking. Then he added the new stair nose and our wood flooring on top. He used poplar to cover the areas where they took the half wall down.

Since I knew some of the materials would be costly for this project, I tried to source affordable balusters, hand rails, and newel posts. I will link what I chose below. Everything was very affordable, but again if we ended up making any wrong cut these could add up and be costly.

We opted to do the painting/staining ourselves to save a bit on the budget. I painted all the newel posts and risers white. For now I’ve left the poplar handrails unstained since they tie into our flooring pretty well in person, but I may be look into doing a slight gray wash now since the poplar has yellowed a bit over the last few years.

I hope this was helpful to anyone who is considering a staircase remodel! I think this could be a diy project for someone who has a lot of project experience, but if not it’s still definitely a project that is worth the investment! This staircase is one of my favorite renovation projects we’ve done to date, and makes a huge impact in our home.