Hi! Stairwell from hell!

Hi There! I usually answer questions but today I'm stuck (and have been for a while). These are the stairs up to the second floor in my 100 year-old home. My first question concerns the wall. The paint has peeled, so I've been pulling/scraping it off. I'm looking for a way to repair and refinish the wall. It's full of holes, cracks and uneven poor repairs. It's plaster and lathe.


The second question concerns the stairs themselves which are steep, worn (clearly) and have a thin depth. I can't afford to replace them and am looking for possible suggestions to increase the depth of them.


Thank you!! :-)

  5 answers
  • Deborah Deborah on Oct 11, 2018

    Okay this one I am working on was lime green! Walls and steps! I used a primer/paint two in one and paid my family to paint. I still need to get up to the ceiling to edge between wall and ceiling. The steps are covered with black vinyl. I did the patchwork with plaster repair which was the easy part of this job. Why not paint the steps and cover each with a durable cover? I will never finish this project if I expect perfection! Its not gonna happen.

  • DP DP on Oct 11, 2018

    The wall- to do this cheap maybe 1/4 inch plywood over the wall then paint, it would cover the holes, you could put a piece of trim at the edges.

    The stairs I don't know how to give them more depth sorry. My basement steps were slippery and needed painted, I painted them then put strips of the anti kid type tape on them so our feet wouldn't slip off the edge. Wish I could help more.

  • Twyla J Boyer Twyla J Boyer on Oct 09, 2019

    Inexpensive is tough with lathe and plaster. The best way to do it is probably to buy the thinnest drywall and cover over the lather and plaster. If that's a no-go, then you are looking at removing any loose plaster (you can usually hear loose places by knocking along the wall, they also tend to have a bit of give if pushed on) and filling in with joint compound.


    Fair warning, I did this with a ceiling years ago and by the time I was done removing loose plaster, there was not much left of the ceiling. I ended up having to hire someone to cover drywall over the whole ceiling.


    If the plaster is solidly attached to the lathe, then use joint compound to fill in the cracks and then skim coat the whole wall. Sand well with drywall screens (this makes a HUGE mess, but gives a much better finish to the wall), prime and paint.


    Alternatively, you could cover the whole thing with something like beadboard and have a little more cost but a lot less work.


    Stair treads - they make caps for them, but they aren't cheap and the treads would have to be evened out for them to work well. If you can't pull off the stair treads and replace them, I am not sure how to make them thicker other than by adding thick enough wood that it will cover the gaps where the treads are worn. But that will cause a problem with the bottom and top steps being a very different height from the rest of the steps, and therefore a tripping hazard.

  • Debo Debo on Oct 09, 2019

    Stairs like this in old homes seem to be the norm and if you use these a lot safety is an issue. I learned the hard way (torn rotator cuff) that since most stairs are the same height and depth (now that codes are used) our brains are trained to know where that next step is and changing the height even a little can cause a fall. Rebuilding them to code is by far the best option for safety but I’ve dealt with this issue fairly inexpensively by purchasing long carpet runners and stapling them to the treads. I found mine on Wayfair for $80 total (they have some really long runners!) You can also use a thick carpet pad on the treads that need a little extra height. You can buy carpet edging too for a cleaner look if you go that route. It’s easy to apply because it comes ready to go, just cut to size and apply to the cut edge.

  • Trudi Trudi on Dec 30, 2019

    It sounds like you have a lot of repair on the wall, so I would re-plaster the whole wall to get a nice smooth area to work with. Then you can paint or what ever you want to do.

    Here are some good ideas to make deeper treads.

    Love to see people redo the older homes. Good luck,