Agnellus

Hello All,

My home has a staircase that was built as part box staircase and part open staircase.

The staircase was constructed to have carpet laid over the treads of the entire staircase. This resulted in roughly twelve inches of the treads for the open staircase being exposed. These treads are 1" oak (white or red I don't know) and were stained and sealed. Unfortunately the whoever stained and sealed only the exposed twelve inches.

I have removed the carpet and 3/4 pine tread underlay from the box staircase and am installing red oak treads which I will stain and seal. This part has been easy.

What is not easy is getting the stain on the previously unstained part of the open staircase treads to blend with the previously stained portions. I cleaned the treads with mineral spirits and sanded before applying the stain. But at this time the line between old stain and new stain is very clear even though the color (Minwax Provincial) is a good match.

Any thoughts on how to blend the new stain with old will be very much appreciated.

Nestor_Kelebay

Most paint stores offer a stain matching service. If you can provide them with a piece of the stained wood you want to match, and a piece of the unstained wood you're using, they can usually do a pretty good job getting a close match.

If that can't be done for whatever reason, your best bet might be to sand the sealer and stain off the portion of each step that is stained, and then stain the whole step with the same stain to ensure a perfect match.

That's your excuse to buy an orbital sander.

budro

that would probably be red oak on the treads. minwax also offers a stain called gel-stain that covers not only bare wood, but painted and stained woods. this could help in the "blend" you are looking for. get some scrap wood and experiment. if you are working around corners you might consider a multi tool also. comes in handy at least once a day for me. my uncle who has passed away used to spit a little of his chewing tobacco in stain to satisfy the ladies on small items they needed a certain shade. weird, yes, got the job done though. budro