Monday, September 10, 2007

Why I can feel muscles I didn't know I had:

Before:

Before

80 year old varnish and Carpet glue from 1980-something.

After-ish:

After

I spent yesterday afternoon getting aquainted with our sander. The stair treads had been refinished just after we moved into the house, but the risers had not been touched. It only took me 6 years to get around to this project and three hours to make it look this much better. Colour me ashamed.

Why did it take us 6 years to get around to this? Um. Well... I only saw the icky risers half the time. On the way down the stairs, all I saw was nice treads. Hee hee.

There is still a lot of work before the stairs are "done" but this is just sooooo much better.

Tip for reno-crazed homeowners: If you encounter a similar situation, do not start sanding the risers from the bottom. The dust makes your stairs quite slippery. It only took 3 stairs for me to sort this out. And no, I did not fall. I just found it difficult to brace myself enough to apply pressure to the sander.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:53 a.m.

    Hey, good work!

    Sanding sucks and makes a wicked mess, no wonder you put it off.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm in the middle of a gigantic reno project at the moment, the most recent phase being sanding floors...what a mess. Next up? A solid oak set of stairs and banister, all covered in about eighty layers of white paint. Paint stripper will help take off any varnish you want to remove but will also take off areas you don't. Good luck to you...looks better already!

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