# Small Nursery and Stair Tread face lift



## captainawesome (Mar 26, 2013)

Since I am new to the DIY section of this forum, I figured I would post some pictures of some work I did on my house a couple of years ago. I've done a lot of other projects, but don't have any pictures of them on this computer.

This was our "throw everything in and shut the door" room that we made into a nursery for our first child (born back in Oct. 2011).

Before:

















After:
























We patched and sanded any imperfections in the walls before installing the wainscoting. It is the pre primed MDF stuff from the big box store, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out. We made sure to take our time when laying out the base board and chair rail so that everything would line up correctly. We used panel adhesive on the walls before installing and 18 ga. brads to secure after each piece was in place.

The adhesive really stiffens the overall feel of it, and gets rid of that hollow cheap sound if something hits it. Made sure to give it a couple good coats of white trim paint, and no one can tell the difference between this stuff, and real bead board!


----------



## captainawesome (Mar 26, 2013)

With two dogs and a baby on the way, we decided that carpeted stairs would never last. Even with just the two of us and the dogs, they were always filthy and we could never get them to clean up very well. 

This was the last project in a string of other renovations, so money was a deciding factor on how to go about it. This is a picture of the stairs after we ripped off the carpet and cut out the old balusters.








I pulled up a few of the lower stair treads and........... lucky me, they used this area as a dumpster during construction of the house! Let me tell you, that was a fun couple of hours cleaning up the mess.








Instead of paying big money for prefinished or hardwood treads, I went to the big box store and purchase 14 of the butt jointed pine stair treads. I believe these are meant to go under carpet, but after a couple days of sanding and a nice dark stain, they ended up looking fairly decent.








We removed and reinstalled the treads and risers in one Saturday. 








And then installed the new balusters on Sunday.








The 1"x12" along the outside of the stairs was put in to cover up the end grain of the stair treads. Trying to get treads with a bullnosed face and one edge would have been way too expensive. I really wish I had spent the money to get the right tread, but I can live with the outside skirt piece. I hardly even notice it anymore.


----------



## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

If you had a router the returns aren't hard to make. You did a great job, it looks good.


----------



## captainawesome (Mar 26, 2013)

BigJim said:


> If you had a router the returns aren't hard to make. You did a great job, it looks good.


Thank You!

I had a router, but I wasn't quite the woodworker back then as I am today. I really wish I had taken a roundover bit to the ends. That thought entered my mind when doing this, but I figured the end grain would have tons of tear out, and wouldn't paint well. This was before I knew of the powers of TBII and glue sizing!!


----------



## jardinier (Mar 27, 2013)

Very nice result !


----------



## yipper (Apr 4, 2013)

Nice work... looks great!


----------

