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You are here: Home / A Day in My Life / Awesome Painted Basement Stairs

Awesome Painted Basement Stairs

June 4, 2013 by SmartGirl 12 Comments

Painted Basement Stairs how toOur basement and basement stairs had been newly carpeted when we moved in. But when the basement flooded we had to tear out the carpet.  Mind you, the carpet on the stairs was perfectly fine, but it didn’t match the wood-look vinyl I installed in the basement and I thought it was weird to just leave carpet on the stairs.  So out it came and this is what I was left with.  View from top of stairs.  Ugly!Basement stairs - carpet removed - needs lots of work

ainted the walls leading down to the basementThat’s my 3-year-old with his protective eye wear and toolbox 🙂My cute 3-year-old helping renovate the basement stairsI searched Pinterest, I Googled “painted stairs,” but I never found anything that knocked my socks off.  My daughter wants to write words on the risers.  We’ll see.  For now I am only committing to do a rainbow-ish look.  I found unopened green and blue exterior paint cans in the garage, and I figured basement stairs could use the extra durability, so I started there.  I bought a can of pink and called it a day.

Rainbow painted basement stair makeoverDIY multi colored staircase makeover

How to get my look:

1) I prepped the stairs by removing carpet staples, then filled in the holes with wood filler.  I gave it a good sanding then a thorough cleaning.  I also caulked the stairs because you could see light shining up through them.
2) After I decided on my color pattern, I wrote each color down directly on the steps.
3) Paint one color at a time.  I painted all the pink steps first.  I taped off the sides, but regretted it.  I stopped using tape after that (except for the platform stripes).  I did 3 coats with a brush.Paint one color first and let dry
4) When the first color is dry, move on to the next.  I did blue next, followed by green.  The top riser still needs to be painted green in this picture.DIY painted basement staircase makeover5) Now it was time to decide what to do with the landing.  I decided against painting the whole thing green, so I tried out a piece of vinyl flooring to see if I liked that.  Nope!!  My dad goes, why don’t you do stripes.  Hmmm… but which direction?  In line with the top stairs or the bottom stairs?  Either way I didn’t like it.  Here’s how it looked with vinyl.  Ugly, right?
Smart Girls DIY: Funky painted basement stairs

I decided to paint the stripes to “curve”.  First I had to tape off my plan.  My landing is not square, so to make it square I painted one faux green stair.  You see what looks like a green stair in this pic?  Nope, that’s actually just paint on the landing.painted rainbow fun kids how to diy tutorialI honestly didn’t give the whole process much thought, just started taping, so please don’t think this is hard to do.  There are certain things you have to take into consideration when using tape.  If I just put the tape down and painted all my stripes, I would be left with gray stripes the width of the tape between each color.  This was not the look I was going for.  You also can’t paint two stripes next to each other at the same time because there’s no where to put the tape in between.  The  only solution is to tape twice.  This was the part that was a pain in the butt because I waited 3 days between paint stages, so I could safely put tape on the paint with less worry of it pulling up.

The first piece I put down was the one in the middle, starting at the upper left corner in the picture.  Then I worked out toward both sides.  Remember I had to paint in two stages.  Stage 1 gets painted first (of course!) and the tape is on the outside of the stripe (because you are painting inside).   The stripes that seem narrower will be saved for stage 2, I marked them with a small piece of tape to remind myself NOT to paint there.  They only look narrower now because the tape is INSIDE the painted area. This tape will be removed before I paint stage 2 and I will have to re-tape before painting.tutorial rainbow stairs fun

6) Paint stage 1.  I am painting two stripes blue, one pink, and one green on this day.  Yes, it was a pain to be using all these brushes at one time.
Smart Girl Painting Basement Stairs

Tip: Because you are constantly going back and forth with 3 colors, you need 3 paint brushes.  You are painting these stairs over several days (due to drying time) and will repeatedly need the brushes.  So when you are finished painting for the moment, just put the brush in a sandwich bag and stick it in the refrigerator.  It’s good to go the next time you need it.

How to reuse your paint brush without washing it out first

7) Remove the tape and let the paint dry for at least 3 days.  (That random bit of blue near the corner was just me trying to see if I could freehand the stripes.  Nope.)

Awesome Painted Basement Stairs TutorialAwesome Painted Basement Stairs Tutorial
Awesome Painted Basement Stairs Tutorial

8) Tape over what you painted in stage 1 to mark the outside edge of stage 2.  I switched to Frogtape because my blue painters tape was not giving me very good results.   You can only do non-overlapping sections together.  I started by taping off the outside stripes.

Awesome Painted Basement Stairs Tutorial
Awesome Painted Basement Stairs Tutorial
9) Then I painted 3 coats of pink. Awesome Painted Basement Stairs Tutorial

10) Remove tape and let dry. (Sorry no more pics of each of these steps.)  Tape off one of the remaining areas.  Paint, remove tape, let dry.  Repeat on the last remaining area and touch up where needed.Basement Stair Makeover by Smart Girls DIY11) Optional: Cover with water-based floor polyurethane

Finally finished!!

If you want to see more about the basement remodel, check out these posts.
  • Basement (Part 1): Flooding Ordeal
  • Basement(Part 2): Insulation, Drywall & More Flooding
  • Basement (Part 3): Paint, Door, Trim & Access Panel

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Filed Under: A Day in My Life, Featured, Tutorials Tagged With: basement, paint, stairs

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Week 10 – Love Me Some Bugleweed »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. My Garden Diaries says

    May 31, 2013 at 5:24 am

    How absolutely awesome are these!!! You need to link up to some parties to show off your outstanding skills!!! Seriously!!! Great work!!!

    Reply
    • Smart Girl says

      June 4, 2013 at 3:14 am

      Thank you for the kind words! And thanks for the kick in the butt!! I linked the 3 Hour Patio post last week to a bunch of parties and it was featured on House of Hepworths and Someday I’ll Learn! I can’t wait to see if the stairs get featured too!!

      Reply
    • LilBlossom says

      June 5, 2013 at 2:16 am

      House of Hepworths brought me to your blog. It has been bookmarked 🙂

      Reply
  2. Crystelle Boutique says

    June 4, 2013 at 5:50 pm

    You’re right about one thing: these stairs are totally awesome! How festive and colorful! I bet they make the whole family smile… 🙂
    hugs x
    Crystelle
    Come join the
    HCG drops giveaway right here

    Reply
  3. Jenn @ TheRollinsHouse says

    June 4, 2013 at 9:53 pm

    These are so neat! I wish I had stairs to paint. I love them!

    Reply
    • Smart Girl says

      June 7, 2013 at 8:40 pm

      Ha! I’m sure you’ve got plenty of other things to paint. I feel like I always do! 😉

      Reply
  4. Shawna @DakotaCreekChic says

    June 5, 2013 at 4:29 am

    These stairs are great!! Very Funky 🙂

    Reply
    • Smart Girl says

      June 7, 2013 at 8:36 pm

      Thanks!

      Reply
  5. Mindy Schaper says

    June 6, 2013 at 10:14 pm

    Very cute. I love colorful things and I like your landing idea. I would totally do something like this.

    Reply
    • Smart Girl says

      June 7, 2013 at 8:37 pm

      Thanks! You should go for it!

      Reply
  6. Jennifer Dawn says

    July 19, 2015 at 7:36 pm

    No way! These are amazing! I love all the bright colors!

    Reply
    • SmartGirl says

      July 24, 2015 at 10:38 am

      Thanks Jenn! I was trying to entice my kids to go down to the basement more… didn’t really work. 🙁

      Reply

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