Trim/molding necessary on stairs?

My brother and I are helping... we are doing the remodel of my parents' house. Everything seems to be a committee meeting even for the simplest of changes. Things are always in flux. We're talking about our staircase and this thing has been.... untouched for decades.

Some time ago my father decided to put nice molding on himself and he did, dark stained, but the lower staircase all that happened was the removal of the 70's shag carpet.... the molding untouched... some of the padding still attached to the treads.

We were thinking about getting rid of the molding. Or at least changing it up. Everything in the house is small. The less we have the better. I think we're pretty much set on replacing the dark stained baseboard and moldings all with white.... but on the stairs can we drop it altogether and still have it look nice? Hardwood urethaned, no stain to a light orange/yellow wall?

Think the option of carpet was not given much thought but better possibility getting a nice look with easy transition between the two (wall/stairs)?

How would the transition go from the baseboard to no molding on the stairs?

I read on another forum, caulk can be an option. Another person recommended if one had access to a router table to construct 1/4" round that is shaped to the curve of the tread.

Looking for ideas and pics! Don't think I'm quite articulating to Google what I'm looking for.

 

Welcome to the forums!

Pics would be helpful - http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...-pictures.html
What decorative molding are you referring to? Are they 'stair brackets' on the outside of the skirt board? Stairs don't typically have baseboard but rather a skirt board [often a 1x12] that goes between the stairs and the wall. If you just want to change the color you can coat the stained wood trim with an oil base primer and then paint it any color you want.

 

If you referring to the joint where the ends of the stair treads and risers meet the walls you don't need anything IF you can get a nice tight joint which might not be easy to do. The quarter round would cover a gappy joint...color matched caulk might work depending on the size/irregularity of the joint.

 

Not sure where the baseboard enters the picture but if it is going to end abruptly a mitered return on its end would give a more finished look.

 

The stairs in their glory. My father recently had a stroke so we needed something fast for railings. A thought we had was to get rid of that little "half wall" and put in a normal railing. I actually proposed it but... seems like it would create a "wide" set of stairs on one side and a "skinny" normal set going to the cellar.



Just invert the placement. Baseboard present, skirt not. Now that I know the term Google has been a friend.

 

Just to make sure we are on the same page, your skirt board is there but the baseboard is not. Usually the base will butt up against the end of the skirt board.

Removing the half wall and installing railing and balusters would make the stair case appear bigger but it's also a lot of work. I'd be inclined to leave the half wall. Was the wall too short to put the handrail at the correct height? Normally the half wall would have a wooden 'cap' on it with the handrail mounted lower on the wall. The cap is often a 1x6.

 

Yeah we're on the same page. The skirt board is probably going away... the baseboard will be replaced.

Too Short? Yes. We had a cap on it for years. It's a 2x6 with ~3/4" hollowed out. I forgot why it came off. The whole house was in decent shape for a long time and then little things started creeping in, "remodels" were started and never finished.

As far as work goes not afraid of any, we basically just finished the bathroom. I started to write what we did but I'll sum it up as basically kept the walls where they were and drywall more than 14" off the floor, LoL. All this stuff needs to get done. Just when it came to the stairs a lot different approaches are possible. Figure if any changes are made best to do it now. Not sure when the next round of renovations would come around.

Having a hard time finding pics of the baseboards ending with no skirt. Did find this, How to end skirting boards neatly with a miter, which I thought was useful but it doesn't show a distant shot. Thought maybe at most put in some sort of shoe molding but not a full skirt...

I guess at worst we'll start with nothing and work our way back to a skirt.

 

Most any molding can be ended that way. You often see it done with chair railing or baseboard although less experience carpenter [like me] usually opts out to just cut a 60° miter on the end and call it a day.

Any special reason for eliminating the skirt board?

 

IMO, it is a big mistake to remove the skirt board.

 

Just the notion that it's absence will create the perception of a more open space. That's been the theme. The medicine cabinet was recessed, if we could've put in a pedestal sink instead of a smaller vanity that would've happened but we needed storage space, if my mother wasn't obsessed with the wall sconces she had a more compact or recessed solution would've been implemented.

As you can see from the length of time this thread has been going it's something isn't on the top of the list but it's getting close.

 

I don't see how removing the skirt board will make the stair well look bigger. Priming and painting it white [or any light color] would make it blend more. The only way to make the space appear bigger is to remove the half wall but I'm not convinced that is worth the effort.