Whew!  After 30+ hours of intense labor, it is done.  Ladies and gentlemen, friends and fans, we are proud to announce the rebirth of our foyer. 

Welcome to the first of two articles about how we transformed our dated oak stairwell into a dramatic entryway.  Now I make it a general policy not to bore you with too much yada yada, but please forgive the longwinded prelude.  When you put over 30 hours into a DIY project, you milk it for all it’s worth. 

Where to begin?  First, I must explain the problem.  The staircase was natural blonde oak.  Dated and dreadful.  NOT the first impression I ever wanted to give my guests.  What was a girl to do?  Replacing it with European style iron railing was the cost of an automobile.  Fixing it seemed too daunting.  Enter Rhoda.  I love Rhoda!  Rhoda at Southern Hospitality blog stained her entire oak staircase a lovely dark shade, from top to bottom, and planted a big seed in my inquisitive brain.  Why if Rhoda could do it, then perhaps I could too. 

That same week I was watching one of my favorite classics ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor.  If you can take your eyes off either of them, which is almost impossible since they’re both practically perfect physical specimens, you notice that they frequently descend the incredibly beautiful staircase of Big Daddy’s plantation home.  When I saw it’s espresso dark railing, white balusters and base, it was true love.  I had to have it.  

So yet another seed was planted.  After Rhoda, Paul and Liz, I was completely inspired.  Off to the home improvement store I went, daring myself to do the impossible: transform the oak monstrosity into something sophisticated and stylish.     

That said, let’s begin.

I’m almost embarrassed to show you, but here is the before:

But darlings, look !  Here is the dramatic after:

Transformed from bland to grand:

How I Gave My Ordinary Oak an Espresso Finish:

Step One:  After all the prep work, taping off the balusters and laying down carpet protection, I stripped the existing varnish off the staircase with Klean-Strip.  It was nasty, smelly full-of-chemicals stuff.  I had to ask Mr. CG to keep the kids away for an entire day.  I wore a mask, and the fumes gave me a bad headache.  And I still had to sand afterwards. 

Step Two:  Sand, sand, sand, then sand again.  I spent about 4 hours just sanding until my fingers cramped and refused another stroke. 

Step Three:  I cleaned off the sanding residue with wet wipes, then stained the upper hand rail with Minwax Gel Stain in Walnut.  This is a wonderful product which I had used before to redo the highboy in the entry.  It’s not Minwax’s fault that I wasn’t satisfied.  It’s just the nature of oak.  It’s such a grainy wood.  When the stain was applied to the oak, it gave me too much of a stripe-like effect.  Darker was much better, but the product only took me half way to the look I desired.

Step Four:  I did something unconventional, and a bit daring.  I glazed the wood with two coats of semi-opaque Burnt Umber acrylic craft paint.  Yes, you heard me right.  Craft paint.  I know purist wood refinishers are absolutely appalled, but I’m telling you, the semi-opaque craft paint filled in the gaps and gave me just the espresso finish I wanted.  See the difference after one coat? 

Yessir.  These were the three products that gave me the look I desired.  Minwax Gel Stain in Walnut, Burnt Umber semi opaque craft paint, and Minwax Wipe On Poly. 

They gave me this finish:

 Hello gorgeous !

Using the glazing effect with the semi-opaque craft paint, rather than latex paint, helped to preserve the visible grain of the wood. 

Step Five:  With the help of a dear friend, and professional painter, we primed the bottom of the stairs with oil based primer, then finished it with two coats of ‘Swiss Coffee’ oil based white paint for durability.  Thanks Mike !

Here’s another peek at the staircase before the base was painted. 

And after it was painted:

Step Six:  To the upper railing only, I applied one coat of Minwax Wipe On Polyurethane.  This took maybe 10 minutes.  No joke.  Pour a few drops on a sponge, wipe on, and you’re done.  It was dry overnight. 

Here’s just one more look at the dramatic change.  We plan to upgrade the carpet to wood steps when the children are a bit older.

The dark railing now coordinates with my refinished highboy in the entry.

I am loving the dramatic deep finish of the railing up against the white balustrade. 

Tomorrow, in part two, I’ll share with you all about the wallpaper treatment I added to the staircase.  You’ll be surprised to learn I used absolutely NO wallpaper paste. 

But for today, I hope you’re all encouraged to take action, and transform your oak into something classic and wonderful.  Yes you can.

Tags: oak transformed, staircase, wallpaper

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at and is filed under Before & After, DIY, Drab to Fab, My Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.