5 Ways to Improve Your Stairs

Your home is no doubt very important to you and each room will have been carefully designed to suit your individual needs. The staircase, however, can often be skipped when making home improvements. Investing in new staircase parts can make a small but noticeable difference and, if you want to give them a complete makeover, stair cladding could be the best affordable option.

Whatever the changes you make, your staircase is an integral part of your home and sees a lot of traffic, so ensuring it’s safe and stylish is important. If you’re not sure of ways that you can improve your staircase, don’t worry, here are five.

• Replace the Hand Rail

Integral to safety when walking up and down the stairs, the handrail can become worn and look out of date. A wall mounted stair handrail is easy and affordable to replace, you can even mix it up and go for a different style. You don’t need to replace it just to give your stairs a new lease on life; you can also replace it to ensure it works with and matches the rest of your home.

You could also get creative and think about other ways to make walking up and down the stairs safe, think about using the rope as a handrail, or even a tree branch. Alternatively, if you want to stick to a regular handrail but want a change, you can paint it to match the colours of your home.

• Add A Stylish Carpet

If your home has wooden floors, then it might make for a nice change to add carpet to your stairs, or if your whole house is carpeted, you may as well carry it on with the stairs. Either way, a carpet on your stairs can add a touch of class whilst ensuring that it’s safe to use. Although wooden stairs do look good, they can be dangerous and a slipping hazard.

Adding a simple stair runner might be the perfect addition to your stairs, you could have stripes to give the illusion that the stairs look more like a slide, or opt for a solid colour. If you’re sticking with a solid colour, make sure that you pick one that will go with the walls and stair colour.

• New Stair Cladding

While your stairs might be in need of a complete makeover, it can often be an expensive and time-consuming task; however, replacing the cladding is a more affordable option that will give your staircase a brand-new look. Try switching it up and go for a completely different style or even change the type of wood used.

If you’re changing the type of wood when replacing your stairs, make sure that you keep in mind the colour and style of any doors and door frames in order to ensure the style follows throughout the house. However, you could mix it up and have different stairs to make them stand out from any other wood used in your home.

• Repaint

If your stairs are in good condition but just don’t match the rest of the house then think about repainting them – this way you can save more money whilst giving your stairs a new lease of life. Choose a colour that will go well with the walls, to make them stand out you could paint them in bright and bold colours.

Alternatively, if you’re not keen on painting the entire staircase then just pain the steps, with this you could get creative by painting each step with a different colour. You could even paint patterns and pictures on to the steps, but make sure that you pick a paint that won’t cause the steps to become slippery and dangerous.

• Change the Lighting

If your stairs are looking fine but seem to be dark and dreary then change the lighting around the staircase. Go for a brighter bulb to make the stairs stand out, or add a colour light bulb for effect.

Lighting doesn’t just have to be exclusively above the stairs, however, you can also add it to the steps; add small sets of lights around the steps to give it a different look.