5 Tips For Staining Wooden Stairs in Denver Metro, CO

When you have wooden stairs in your home, part of the maintenance and upkeep of the stairs involves making sure to take the time to occasionally re-stain them — or, if the stairs are newly built, staining them, to begin with.

Wooden stairs are like any other wooden product and need special care — you can’t just treat them like other stairs that would get cleaned and even painted.

While wooden stairs can, of course, be painted, there’s a special quality that you get from staining them — they certainly benefit health-wise from good staining.

Let’s look at and consider five tips for staining wooden stairs in Denver Metro, CO.

1. Clean First

When you’re looking to stain your wooden stairs, the first thing you need to do is to make sure that the stairs are clean.

This means more than just sweeping them and wiping them to make sure that they are free of any loose dust or dirt that may be on them.

It would help if you scrubbed the stairs well to make sure that they are entirely free of any dirt and then, of course, allow time for them to dry.

2. Don’t Try To Stain Already Stained Stairs

In staining your wooden stairs, there has to be a certain quality — open pores, that is — that will permit your stain actually to affect your stairs.

When your stairs are already stained, and you want to stain them anew, you will have to take steps before applying a new coat of stain.

Specifically, you have to sand the stairs gently — this will open up the stairs’ pores and make it possible for you to stain them.

If your wooden stairs are newly constructed, of course, you don’t have to worry about this because the newly constructed stairs won’t have any stain on them.

3. Don’t Leave Stain On Too Long

The longer you leave on the stain, the darker the stain ultimately will be.

That being the case, you don’t just put the stain on your stairs and then walk away for a few days — invariably, you’re going to have a little excess stain on the stairs that need to be wiped away.

The issue is that some people presume that the quantity of strain they put on is okay, and they leave it all on indefinitely — and this is not appropriate ever.

The stain shouldn’t be allowed to dry on — but rather, you should time the length it stays on consistently throughout the staining process so that all of your stairs get stained for the same amount of time.

4. Gloves And Old Clothes

When you’re staining your wooden stairs, you can’t just go in wearing new clothing and nothing on your hands.

Well… you can, but only if you don’t mind getting your new clothes covered with stained and utterly ruined, and your hands similarly covered in stain and need of a good cleaning.

Instead, it would help if you considered how to choose clothing — clothing that you don’t mind getting completely covered in stain — and choose a good pair of disposable gloves to wear while staining.

This is a good thing because, at worst, you can dispose of the clothing, and you won’t feel a loss over it.

5. Stain Is Not Protection

Lastly, please remember that staining your wooden stairs does not protect them, and you have to take a final step to get that protection.

Specifically, you have to put on a clear finishing coat before you can consider your wooden stairs fully and properly stained.

The clear finishing coat is the step that you have to take to protect your stairs.

Don’t settle for just any painter when you can get the attention to detail and professionalism from Imhoff Fine Residential Painting in Denver Metro, CO. Call us today to speak with one of our professional color consultants.

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