Renovation & Makeover

Guides in this hub

• Why you have to finish your new staircase (and why it is on you)

  A new timber staircase is not finished until it is sealed. Bare timber takes on moisture and moves, which splits treads and loosens spindles. Seal every face, mind the wet plaster, and know that finishing it is your job, not the maker's.

• Cladding an existing staircase in oak: what the kits do and when they work

  Oak stair cladding covers an existing staircase with oak tread and riser boards and a thickened nosing, for the look of a solid oak stair without replacing it. It works well on a straight, closed-string stair, but it adds to the step dimensions and struggles on open strings and winders.

• How to modernise an old staircase without replacing it

  You can update most of an old staircase without ripping it out: change the spindles, swap the handrail and newel caps, clad the treads, or paint and strip back. Which of those is cosmetic and which needs building control depends on whether you change the shape of the stair, not just the look.

• Restoring a period staircase

  How to restore a period staircase rather than replace it: the damage we typically find, how missing parts are matched, and where listed building rules come in.

• How to fix a squeaky stair, from below and from above

  A squeaky stair is movement at a joint. The best repair is made from underneath at the joint itself, and if the underside is plastered in you fix it from above by screwing down through the tread.

• Fitting a new staircase into an existing opening

  In most homes the existing opening and the floor-to-floor height largely fix what a replacement staircase can be, so a like-for-like swap usually keeps the same rise, going and footprint, while the look, timber and balustrade are free to change.

• Sanding and refinishing worn stair treads

  Worn treads can often be sanded back and refinished rather than replaced, though the nosing is the tricky part, and in homes painted before about 1960 old paint layers may contain lead, so test or take precautions before you sand.

• Replacing a broken or dated stair spindle

  A single broken or dated spindle can be replaced on its own without redoing the whole balustrade, by freeing it top and bottom and fitting a new one, and a period spindle can be copied from a surviving original.

• Replacing just the staircase handrail

  You can replace a handrail on its own, on the wall side or on the balustrade, without rebuilding the stair, and while a straight post-to-post rail is a simple swap, a continuous or curved rail is a much bigger job.

• Replacing a newel cap

  A newel cap is the decorative top of the newel post and one of the easiest parts of a staircase to change, fixing by glue and dowel, a screw from below, or a turned cap that slips over the post, so swapping it updates the look without touching the structure.