How do I paint a staircase without making it slippery?
The finish on the treads is a safety decision, not a decorating one. Everything else about painting a staircase is ordinary woodwork with an awkward access problem.
- Difficulty
- intermediate
- Time
- 5 hr
- Read
- 2 min
- Safety
- warning
Short answer
Use a purpose-made floor or stair paint on treads, not ordinary woodwork gloss, and add an anti-slip additive or a runner. Paint alternate steps so the flight stays usable, and prepare thoroughly because stairs get more wear than any other painted surface in the house.
Painted staircases look excellent and cause more falls than any other decorating decision in a house. The problem is that ordinary paints and varnishes give a smooth, hard, low-friction surface, and stairs are the one place where losing grip has serious consequences. Solving that is straightforward once it is treated as part of the specification rather than an afterthought.
Safety
Step by step
- Decide first what will be walked on.Treads take feet; risers, strings and balustrade do not. Only the treads need a slip-resistant specification, which means you can use ordinary woodwork paint on everything else.
- Choose a floor-grade product for the treads.Paints and varnishes formulated for floors and stairs are harder wearing and available with slip resistance. Ordinary gloss on a tread wears through quickly and is slippery from day one.
- Add grip rather than hoping.An anti-slip additive stirred into the tread coating, adhesive grip strips near the nosing, or a runner down the middle. A runner also protects the paint, which is the finish most likely to wear.
- Prepare properly, because stairs are punishing.Clean off polish and grime, fill and sand, and key any existing finish thoroughly. GuideHQ has a guide on stripping a painted staircase if the existing layers are heavy or failing.
- Deal with the gaps before painting.Flexible filler at the moving joints, cured fully. Painting first and filling afterwards leaves lines that are very hard to touch in.
- Paint alternate treads so the stairs stay usable.Do every other step, let them harden, then do the rest. The flight remains passable throughout, which matters if it is the only staircase in the house.
- Work from the top down and plan your exit.Simple and easy to forget. Painting yourself onto a landing with wet treads between you and the rest of the house is a classic.
- Allow proper curing before normal use.Floor coatings are touch dry long before they are hard. Walking on them early marks them permanently and wears them through quickly.
- Keep the nosing visible.A contrasting or clearly defined step edge helps everyone see where the step is, and matters a great deal for older people and anyone with poor sight. A uniform dark staircase is harder to judge.
Common mistakes
- Using ordinary woodwork gloss on treads. — It is slippery, and it wears through where feet land within a season. It is the wrong product for a floor.
- Painting the whole flight at once. — The stairs become unusable for hours, which in most houses is not an option and leads to people using them anyway while wet.
Questions people ask
Can I varnish rather than paint?
Yes, and the same rule applies: use a floor-grade product with slip resistance on the treads. Clear finishes are just as slippery as opaque ones.
Is it safe to have fully painted stairs with no runner?
It can be, with a slip-resistant tread finish. Without one, a runner or grip strips are strongly worth having — particularly with children, older people or anyone who takes stairs in socks.