Varnishing a staircase

[JohnRoss]

Doing up an old wooden staircase with open treads. I have some 3V3 Vernis tons bois but is that likely to wear quickly on the treads or make them slippery? Is there something better I could use?.......................JR

[ventodue]

Hi JohnRoss,

You can get 2-pack floor varnishes which are harder wearing, but that might be a little OTT unless the stairs are going to get a lot of use.  I used it in an office building some years back - the architect shouldn't have specified wooden treads in the first place, really.  Hellish noisy.  But I digress ...

Is the staircase inside?  If so, might be better to just make sure people take their outside shoes off first [;-)]  But no, seriously, a normal varnish should do and will only be slippy if the base wood is really, really smooth.  One of our student lets has a varnished wooden staircase and that's still ok after 3 years - and, to the best of my knowledge, no-one has yet fallen down it [:)]

HTH,

Craig

[JohnRoss]

Thanks Craig and yes it is an inside staircase. Don't tend to wear our outside shoes much indooors so I will go with the ordinary varnish. The base wood is not that smooth as it has had quite a lot of wear over the years. Put in about 24 years ago. Many thanks...........ATB...............JR