Stairway painting can be a little more difficult then painting a room. With a few tips, it is not any more difficult then painting in any other room. We always equip all our extension ladders with leg levelers. The strange thing about these, and frustrating, is that on stairs the levelers are always a couple inches short. We fix this problem by using a stair wedge. The actual name is “pivot ladder tool”. The ladder tool works well. We pretty much only use these on stairs and not in any of the other ways they show you can use this tool.

So the challenge with painting a stairway is mostly with the confined space and the height. The other things that can pose a problem are curved walls and when carpet and wall meet without there being any wood trim between the carpet and painted wall. These are easy to solve.

So One of the first things you will want to do is cover the stairs with drops. If the stairs are carpeted and there is no riser, the carpet ends where the drywall starts, you will want to use a wider tape like a 2″ and tuck a good inch behind the carpet. It is helpful to use a five-in-one or putty knife to work the tape down along the wall. So when cutting out the walls you will want to stab the paint down between the tape and wall. When you are done and you pull the tape it will also pull up on the carpet past your cut line.

When the walls are all cut in you can get a good roll on the walls with the use of extension poles. It is easier to have a taller pole and a shorter one.

If you were considering painting the ceiling, now is the time to do it. When doing your cut at the ceiling line do two cuts before doing the roll. That way once you are done with the cuts you can get the ladders out of the way. Another tip is to not take you ladders too far away until you are done. That way if you do tag the ceiling you will have the ladder on hand to get back up there and fix it.