Staircase Makeover Part 2

One more weekend down and here is how our staircase has progressed:

(If you want to see Part 1 of our staircase makeover, go here)

We had to sand all of that white overspray off of the stair treads. That was not an easy task. I ended up having to buy an additional sander (a detail sander) so that I could get in those cracks and corners. I sanded the steps as much as I could with my regular sander and here is how they looked:

See the white paint still on the edges? Now you see it, now you don't: (thanks detail sander!)

So after all of that sanding, we vacuumed each step. I used a tack cloth to wipe off all of the dust and then I got to staining!! I couldn't wait for this part but I really wanted to make sure I did a thorough job with the prep work. I used Minwax stain in Red Oak to match our current flooring downstairs. 

The next step was adding a second coat of stain. 

The bottom step in the picture above doesn't have the second coat yet- big difference, right?!

Next steps:

-Adding polyurethane to the steps. I'm thinking this will take at least two to three coats. 

-Painting the risers and trim along the side of the steps with a fresh coat of white! 

Just a reminder, here is how the steps looked before:

And now:

What do you think so far?!! I'm so excited to see the end result!!! 

PS- I will also be painting the hand rail white. It looks so out of place now!