When we redid the carpet in the basement, I pulled the old carpet off the stairs and thought the wood was in good enough shape that I could easily clean it up and use some kind of varnish instead. My knee jerk answer is Varathane but I thought I should get some opinions. There’s also more than one type of Varathane.
Here’s a couple of concerns I have.
[ul]
[li]My son lives downstairs so dry time is an issue.[/li][li]I don’t want it slippery enough to be an occupational health and safety violation[/li][li]I’m lazy and cheap[/li][/ul]
I want it to look good but it’s an old house so it’s ok if it looks old.
Use paint and put carpet treads on the steps. The paint will be long lasting and durable, and the carpet will lessen the noise of your son clomping up and down the steps.
Agreed. A good quality deck paint will last quite awhile, and the bullnoses will provide a measure of safety. Or you could just stain the stairs and put down a full stair tread like this one.
I asked a similar question recently - thread here. I ended up using a water-based varathane, and in the last coat, I mixed in some clear silica. The silica doesn’t show at all and gives it just enough texture so socks have a little grip.
ZenBeam’s suggestion to finish every other stair will potentially work (given the caveats). Don’t try finishing only one side of all the stairs at a time - you’ll end up with lines down the middle of the stairs. I found with the varathane I used, the dry time was short enough that I could finish a coat before bedtime and it was walkable by the time I woke up.
