What is the finish on the "yellowish oak staircase"? How is he going to do the prep work, exact steps? The market changes form region to region, city to city so some idea of area may help as well. To do this properly would be a lot of work, lot of prep time.

Stair work of any kind in notoriously expensive. That doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

Since you want it restained, it has to be completely stripped of its finish, and sanded well, and then restained, and top coated. Stain soaks into the wood, and it is a lot of work, to get the finish off, and back to all raw wood. Its very expensive to do.

Go for it before the contractor realizes he quoted the job to cheap and backs out. You can repay us for our advice by posting before and after pictures of stairs.

Before

Staircase in the process (now), prep was done, this is first coat (treads not done yet). And my fireplace before and 2 coats ( I think he’ll do third coat).

If that is yesterday to today, no way did he do the proper prep and refinish in a day.

Oh not one day . He spent one day to tape, one day to wash and sand, one day for the railing first coat, one day for coating the rest. So he’s been working about 4 days to get to this picture I posted.

Just for the staircase.

It would take at least 3-5 days to fully strip all that wood working to bare wood. You are talking railings, balusters, post, rosettes, treads, risers and scotias. If, it was a wash, buff and recoat. $10k is too much. Looks like a gel stain, which can be applied over polyurethane.

Oh no! That’s exactly what he did! Wash, buff, gel stain! Will it give different results between the two methods ?

" Will it give different results between the two methods ? "

Yeah, that is the half-a**ed way of doing it that will not be as durable of a finish.

Absolutely, it will not be as durable. Read my post up above. Thats the way it should have been done, and the prep would have taken many days.