A plain wood staircase is a highly attractive addition to a home. Its clean lines and burnished tones look great. However, if you're about to install a new wooden staircase, you have to put extra thought into safety issues. Varnished wood doesn't have much, if any, grip. Your beautiful new staircase could easily turn into a safety hazard.

It's easy to slip on wood treads. This is a tricky problem if you have kids at home. They may wander around in their socks or run up and down the stairs without realising that this could be dangerous. It won't take much for them to slip and fall. While carpeting your stairs reduces this risk, you may not want to cover over the staircase. What else can you do to make it safer?

Add Anti-Slip Tape

You can buy anti-slip tape for wooden stairs. These tapes go across the middle or edge of each tread. They provide an area of grip on the slippery wood. A tape strip makes a tread safer. Anyone going up or down the stairs has something to hold their feet in place more effectively, so the stairs themselves become less hazardous.

While some people use a coloured strip as an additional design feature, you can go for a less obvious look. You can use clear tapes that are virtually invisible if you want to keep your staircase looking more natural.

Add an Anti-Slip Coating

If you don't want to use tape to improve your grip on the stairs, then you can add an anti-slip varnish or coating to the wood. You can apply some of these products yourself after you have your staircase installed if you wish. However, if you're having a new staircase installed, then you could order one that comes with an anti-slip coating already. Here, the manufacturer or installer applies a special coating to the wood before it goes in place.

This kind of coating tends to come in a powder form. The powder is added to a final coat or varnish. It turns this coat from a slip hazard to one with more grip. This coating doesn't have to detract from the natural beauty of the wood. You can use clear products that aren't visible. You won't even notice the powder itself when you look at or use the stairs. All you get is a safer grip.

To find out more about your anti-grip stair options, talk to your staircase supplier.