Before & After: Boring Stairs Get a Kick of Copper

published Oct 7, 2014
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(Image credit: David Brant )

David told us this project was six months in the making, even through “most of it was procrastination.” We’re glad he finally got around to it because this is one unexpectedly cool stair upgrade.

(Image credit: David Brant )

From David:

We started with plain, light wood stairs. We wanted a dark, near black color to match our cast iron, gas fireplace on the other side of the room. We liked the color so much, I ended up painting the rest of the trim in the living room with that color before returning to the stairs. The next step was stripping, staining and polyurethaning the steps. Then came the big step — patinated copper veneer on the kick board. Cutting the pieces was a little intimidating, but once you realize precision doesn’t really matter, it gets easier. Ditching the contact cement and using Gorilla Glue instead was key. Then it’s roll, roll, roll all those bubbles out. It’s harder to do on a vertical surface than on a horizontal surface, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Thank you David!