If you're looking to gradually make positive changes to the look of your home, it's useful to identify an area that needs some work and consider the various options at your disposal. When you look at your home's staircase, you might feel as though the stair stringer lacks visual appeal. The stringer is the piece of wood that runs diagonally along the side of the stairs and is often visible. There are several ways that you can improve the look of your stair stringer, and your local home improvement store has the various products that you need. Here are three projects to consider:

Paint

Often, you can improve the look of your stair stringer with a fresh coat of paint. If the current paint on this part of the stairs no longer matches the paint on the surrounding walls or is a poor fit with how you decorate your home, changing its color can be a major visual improvement that doesn't take a lot of work. Depending on the current paint color, you may need to prime the stringer first. A couple of coats of new paint will not only give the stringer a fresh, updated look, but they can also hide any blemishes that may have occurred over the years.

Stain

If you enjoy the look of stained wood, staining the stair stringer can be another home improvement project to think about. If the stringer currently has a stain on it, you'll need to strip it before you can restain it. There are several ways that you can strip stain, including sanding it. Once you've exposed the bare wood, you can begin to apply a few coats of stain that will highlight the wood grain and make the stringer a better visual fit with other wood that you may have in the area.

Tile

Another option is to affix tiles to your staircase stringer. Doing so can dramatically change its appearance, and you might like the idea of this part of the staircase standing out more. Your home improvement store will sell all sorts of tiles that you can consider for this application, including tiles of different sizes. If you favor large tiles, you may need to cut some of them to size—which means that you'll want to rent a tile cutter. You can also buy a tub of wall tile adhesive, the tools to apply it, and tile spacers. Visit your local home improvement store to get inspiration for various projects and buy the supplies that you'll need.

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