STRIPPING THE VICTORIAN STAIRCASE OF PAINT AND VARNISH!

Hi, I'm Jennie, and this is a blog about stripping a Victorian staircase and renovating it or restoring it to it's former glory if you will.

Having trawled the internet for what seemed like hours (if not days!), looking for advice on how to go about this mamouth task, I decided, that once completed, I would set up my own blog to give advice to other novice DIY Victorian or Old House restorers.  I've included some before and after photographs as I struggled to find these myself and I needed some for both inspiration and motivation when I felt the end was never coming and during moments when I couldn't help but ask the question "What the hell have I started?"

Firstly, I stripped the old paint off the newel posts and ballustrades with a hot air gun (NOT suitable for old, lead based paints, you'll endure heavy headaches and feel unwell for some weeks.....not good!) using a shave hook and flat scraper as aids.  This took approx. 12 hours for a 3 storey staircase consisting of 6 intricate and detailed newel posts and 6 bannisters of varying lengths.  To both my delight and surprise, the paint absolutely flew off with this method and, consequently, I actually found this process theraputic. BE CAREFUL THOUGH! Do not hold the heat gun in the same place too long as scorching the wood is a complete pain in the butt and difficult to remove later.  As soon as the paint starts to bubble and lift off the wood, turn the heat gun off and use the shave hook to remove it.

Unfortunately for me, underneath the paint was old varnish too :( The heat gun won't remove this so it was time for the dreaded Nitromors! Aaaaarrrggghhhh! I was absolutely dreading this process and severe patience is required for this stage.  The Nitromors Tin comes in either a runny syrup type format but more recently, they've developed Nitromors Mouse, which is great for spraying on vertical surfaces, much less dripping onto surrounding surfaces and almost as effective.  I felt the need to leave the mouse on longer than the syrup.

Ensure you completely ventilate the area though, opening as many windows and doors as possible but not too many so as to dry the Nirtomors out inbetween coats.  Cover your face and eyes with a professional respirator if you can acquire one and wear very strong gloves! If any Nitromors gets on your skin, get to the bathroom and wash it off immediately!!! You won't need reminding though as it starts to sting badly within 3 seconds, I only did it once.  Cover all surfaces that you don't want to strip, including floor coverings as it literally eats anything in it's path!

I managed quite well removing the varnish with the initial coat to blister the varnish and remaining stubborn paint and then another coat to really get back to the bare wood of the staircase.  You'll need old toothbrushes and loads of wire wool.  I wouldn't use harsh, really stiff wire brushes though as these dug some deep trenches into the softened wood, which was a shame and you can still see this damage slightly, even after varnishing. Use toothbrushes or wired wool dipped in Nirtomors to attack the intricate detailing on newel posts or spindles if you're stripping them too.  Then wash off the Nitromors using luke warm water and old rags or yet more wire wool.  This takes hours upon hours.  I broke it up over a period of 3 months, doing a few hours at a time each go but I found it totally worth it and I love the staircase now.

Being a sucker for punishment, I decided I wanted to strip the treads of the stairs too.  There was only a thin layer of paint on these and I figured it would be very old, so a hot air gun was NOT used.  Nitromors stripped it off easily enough though and then the stairs had to be heavily sanded back to the bare wood, ready for varnishing.  This again took a few solid days of work :(  But, I think they look great (see photos)  If you haven't got the patience though, just paint the entire stairs white if you're having a runner and stair rods.

I wanted the risers painted white to contrast with the dark varnish on both the treads, newel posts and bannisters and they were in terrible condition after we stripped up the carpet (so were the treads), so we had the idea of covering each one over with a very thin piece of board (sold at any DIY store)! It completely covered all the years of nail holes etc. for under £20.  These were then undercoated and painted in white gloss.

The finishing touch was the runner and stair rods.  Using the same carpet as my upper stairs and landing, which we had 'whipped' around the edges to create the runner.  Now, stair rods can be very expensive, but I bought 13 stair rods, brackets and finials (there were choices of finials) off ebay for just £89.95 including delivery (and they'll trim them to size if required).  They're hollow, not solid, but who can tell????? I think they're great.

Hope this helps folks

Jen