100 Year Old Staircase Makeover Revealed

Our house is officially 100 years old this year… 2014.  So, I thought, in honor of it’s 100 year old celebration, I’d bring back some of my older posts, showing the transformation of my 1oo year old home.

This post was originally published in June of 2011.  

This post has been in the making for months.  After replacing the window going up my stairs and removing the brown curtains that were covering the troubled window, the beautiful light had an opportunity to shine through.  However, the beautiful light showed some not so beautiful carpet on the steps.

Isn’t it HORRIBLE!  I’m embarrassed to even show it…oh my… so gross!  Anyway, once the curtain was removed, we knew we had to do something about it.
Our initial thought was to just lay new carpet (that would have been far too easy!) and then we got the brilliant idea to try to re-finish the steps.

This is what the steps looked like when we took off the carpet.  The steps were installed before the walls so the treads had been nailed in from inside the walls.  The only way to get the treads off was to use a heavy-duty saw and cut through all the nails.
After getting the treads off we were able to see what 100 years of dust looks like…Are you ready??

My Better Half is convinced that there is a jar of money buried somewhere in this old house or in the yard.  We had to laugh when we found this $10 bill “hidden” under the steps.  It was only monopoly money but it still made us smile!

Ok, back to the steps.  After weighing the pros and cons we decided to make new treads for the steps instead of restoring the old ones.  We saved the old ones for a later project, of course.

We then stained them to match the floor leading up to the steps.

Since the steps were going to look new, I knew we needed to re-finish the woodwork on the railing and going up the steps as well.  I got busy with the sander and removed 100 years of varnish, stain, and crud.

I applied the matching stain…this is just the start but I had to take a picture.

My Better Half started to install the steps.  First he put bead board on the front of the riser.  Then added the tread…it’s gonna look sooo nice!

Ok, fast forward days, or more like weeks to see the finished product.

There you have it…my new steps.  I’m really glad this job is completed.  It was a long time coming but the results were worth every minute.