Because of our silly mistakes, we had managed to turn a quick weekend project into a multi-week project (we move slowly). Sigh. And we were not looking forward to what we had to do next.
Since our stain had not been applied properly, and it was WAY too dark, we knew our only option was to sand all the stain off.
All 15 stairs and to be completely sanded to remove all stain.
Oh my.
Our electric hand sanders were simply not cutting it. We both worked on a stair forever and the stain wasn't even close to coming off...so we invested in our third sander: a belt sander.
The belt sander made sanding the stairs a LOT easier! We still had to use our corner hand sander for the edges and corners but at least we could get the majority of our stain off pretty easily.
It still took us HOURS to sand all the stairs though. So not cool.
And I can't even begin to describe how much sawdust encased our home. It was awful. But it was done. And this time we were determined to do it right!
Only...it didn't all go as planned...again...
You can read the whole Staircase Make-Over Series here:
Staircase Make-Over {Part 1}: the prep
Staircase Make-Over {Part 2}: and it all went downhill
Staircase Make-Over {Part 3}: the downhill spiral continues
Staircase Make-Over {Part 4}: are you kidding me!?!?
Staircase Make-Over {Part 5}: this was our final attempt...no matter what!
Staircase Make-Over {Part 6}: the finishing touches
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odiepihpig
Very nice job. I am anxious to see the end result. Question for you, you have inspired me to tackle my stairs, but i have a tread runner, therfore stained oak with a piece missing where the carpet is. Any suggestions? I would appteciate your time. Thank you!<br /><br />
Ashley Phipps
Thank you! <br /><br />Without seeing the stairs I couldn't really tell you...but I would imagine that you would need to take your carpet up (obviously 🙂 and then sand the entire stair all the way down so that the stain is completely gone. Then re-stain the entire stair so that you will have uniform color.
livy
To avoid sawdust, use a sander that has holes (such as mouse sander); sandpaper hole pattern does not have to match if the sander came with a hole puncher that makes holes for you. IMPORTANT: do NOT rely on the "catch bag" to capture the dust...this will not work. Instead, remove the catch bag and hook up a shop vac to the sander; I had to hold it the whole time since it was larger, you could try to tape it if you have to sand alot. Also make sure your shop vac has a good bag and a filter inside it. This resulted in ZERO sawdust from sanding the entire staircase.