Expert: Joseph G. Swallow - 5/21/2009

Question
Hello.  We just completed our newly constructed home with an all oak staircase.  The first 5 steps were stains before being installed and stain was applied with a brush then polyeurathaned - the remainder steps my husband decided to cut the brush work out of the process and applied the stain with a rag and then put 2 coats of eurothane on them causing the coloring to be way off from the first 5 steps.  I am assuming that I will need to strip these down to the bare and redo them but wanted to know the correct way in doing this as I want the best results for our beautiful solid oak staircase.
Please advise


Answer
If I was in your position, I would do one of two options:

1.  Strip and restain the treads.  The only problem here is that it is messy, is time consuming, and there is no guarantee that you can perfectly match the stain tone of the other treads when finished.  You would need an orbital and probably belt sander after stripping off the varnish to make sure you are down to bare wood.  The edges are difficult without an edge sander, but an orbital will do the job.

2.  Replace the treads.   This may be costly, $35 to $40 per tread in Red Oak, but it would be less time and have the ability to match up the stain colors as desired.

Personally, I dread stripping varnish off of anything. <s>

Thank you!

Joseph