There are some things about my house that I love and others that I can’t stand – my staircase falls into the latter category. It is an ugly sight – the stair treads are red oak and cast an orangey hue, I have heinous “granny style” stair tread rugs so the dog can get up and down the stairs without slipping, and the handrail doesn’t match the color of the stair treads or anything else in the stairwell. Fixing up my staircase has always been on my to-do list but somehow another project always sneaks above it on the list so my ugly staircase remains ugly (I’d show you a picture but don’t want to be responsible for the nightmares that may ensue…). I’ve decided to move this project up toward the top of my to-do list and thought I’d share a few of the ideas I’m thinking of! (post includes affiliate links; full disclosure statement available {here})
Wallpapered Stair Risers
One option that I love is to wallpaper our stair risers. You can make them uniform with a single pattern of wallpaper or mix things up like with these fun wallpapered stairs:
Stenciled Stair Risers
Another option that can give you a similar look is to use stencils! Two of my favorites were done by Melanie Royals, a stencil artist who is President/Creative Director of Royal Design Studio. I am in awe of this gorgeous staircase with the stair risers she and her team stenciled with Moroccan patterns:
 |
| Royal Designs Studio |
This set of stenciled stair risers is also nothing short of fabulous – and check out the matching door!
 |
| Royal Design Studio |
You can actually buy the stencils that they used to create these gorgeous stair risers from Royal Design Studio.
Vinyl Stair Risers
If you don’t have the time or patience for stenciling, vinyl decals are another great option for creating decorative stair risers. For example, you can purchase these floral stair riser vinyl decals from the Etsy shop Vinyltastic
 |
| Vinyltastic |
Camila from the blog “Effortless Style” used zebra decals to totally pimp out her stair risers! So fun!
 |
| Effortless Style |
Nadia also used decals she found at Wall Pops to decorate her stair risers – she shows off the beautiful result on her blog “House 36“.
 |
| House 36 |
What’s your take on decorative stair risers – do you love the idea too?!
I am literally at a conference for Annie Sloan stockists and retailers and painted stairs were one of our covered topics. So I think you are really onto something here, Kris! In addition to doing patterns, remember you could also just paint the backs of stairs an interesting color or series of colors….Just learned about Annie Sloans floor lacquer – which is a thin, clear coat that was developed to be compatible with her Chalk Paint making it now suitable for use on floors. HOORAY!
Love the fact that Annie Sloan will now have a floor lacquer! Thanks for keeping us in the know! 🙂
Oh I wish I had stairs now… I have split level with two stairs! mmmm can I do something there maybe?? thanks for the great post
The good news is that with only two stairs, you can totally pimp them out without it looking like “too much”, right?! Thanks for the comment!
My husband & I definitely love the idea of different risers from treads on stairs! We did tile risers on our stair case in our home that we built a year ago. You can see a picture on my business’ blog (25th pic down): http://www.simplifyyourspacetx.com/p/our-home_06.html
LOVE your blog!!
LOVE your tiled stairs – gorgeous!! You have a beautiful home!
Thank you! I thoroughly enjoy your blog!
OMG, I totally have a bug up my butt about painting the risers on our staircase. I would love to do a chevron pattern like I’ve seen on a Home Depot commercial recently, using the colors of your site background, which is the color I just painted the spindles of the handrail. But, my honey thinks chevrons are too “modern” for our little Cape Cod house. I’ll find the right pattern and show him! ;-D Love all the examples shown.
Do it so I can live vicariously through you! As much as I would love to do the same thing on my stairs, our dog slips on them without carpet so I decided that painting the risers it isn’t going to happen 🙁 I want to see a pic of your stairs when you’re done!!
I absolutely love the first sample. The red popping color is just perfect. It is like a cherry on an ice cream. Anyway, thank you for this post. It is such a great way to show the world that stencilling is a real work of art.
I have a cabin, everything wood, and I have been trying to figure out what to do with basement stairs to make them “pop” when your coming up. I love these ideas and intend to do something that will give me a look with a “lot of bang for the buck”. Appreciate all of these great ideas.
Sounds like a fun project. Would love to see what you come up with!
Can these stencils be used on cement steps in our garage which leads to our Rec Room? I would like something different & this looks amazing.
I’ve definitely seen people stencil their stairs with them – most of the time they just do it on the risers because it would wear pretty quickly on the stair treads.