Five and Done: Painting a Stair Runner

You Will Need

Sander

Painter’s tape

Paintbrush

Porch-and-floor enamel

Varnish

When designer and blogger Elizabeth Baumgartner (thelittleblackdoor.blogspot.com) redid her basement, she decided to lose the dirty, matted carpet on the steps in favor of a clean coat of paint. “We thought painting them with a runner would be kind of fun, since it leads down to the playroom and the family room,” she says.

Baumgartner sanded the stairs, added a coat of primer, then painted on white porch-and-floor enamel. After it dried, she taped out her pattern, then brushed on another coat of white to keep the subsequent blue coat from bleeding underneath. Four coats of blue enamel later (with drying time in between), Baumgartner pulled up the tape.

While letting the paint on the steps dry for a few days, she sanded down the banister and painted it blue as well. Then she finished off the stairs with a coat of clear floor varnish. “I always painted my way upstairs so I wouldn’t be stranded down there for a while,” she says, laughing. “It’s kind of a practice in acrobatics, but it goes pretty fast.”