A while ago, I removed all of the white carpet from the forward staircase. I’m sure it was beautiful when it was first installed, but it was clear that it wasn’t practical for daily wear. At the time, I painted the stairs to match, with a strip of tread at the toe.

It proved to be a good idea in theory, but violated one of my cardinal rules: walking surfaces should be dark in color. When we painted the walking surfaces of the upper deck in battleship gray, it was one of the best moves ever. The yellow cream color on the stairs did not wear as well as I would have liked and was tough to keep looking clean. Even after wiping the stairs down, they still looked grungy.

So I fixed that today. It’s still paint, so it’s washable. We added SharkGrip to the paint, so it will be non-slip but still easy on the bare feet. It’s easier to clean than surfaces with sand-type additives. We have it in the moisture cure urethane that we have on the decks and that seems to be working out well, so I’m hopeful.