I posted this on the paint forum the other day but it's not moving yet. Any ideas?

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Back in Sept. I followed Paintguy's steps and advice for my stairs. Carpet came off and I really took my time with this and 3 months later my stairs are still tacky, mark up easy, and the treads are dull in the middle where we step. I used SW Porch and Floor paint. I finally called the SW store last week and it turns out it was a bad batch. They've had a bunch of complaints over the past couple weeks. They're willing to refund my money or credit it towards something else. I asked what he would suggest I do and he said sand the tacky areas (felt like saying,"you mean the whole thing") and he mentioned another paint they carry but I forget what he said. I'll be using the same dark brown color, SW Woodsy Brown. I'm glad they're refunding my money but that doesn't fix the time and labor I put into this.

One thing I did find interesting is he asked if it was a dark color and it seemed that's why some of the areas aren't wearing well? Is this common? After I got off the phone I wondered why he didn't recommend a "good batch" of the porch and floor paint once I did the sanding??? Doesn't sound good to me.

A few people suggested I ask that one of their guys come out and redo it but that doesn't necessarily mean it will turn out super. When I do something, I'm ok if the results aren't professional perfect because I'm not one. I feel differently if a professional is doing the work and since we wouldn't be paying.... it just doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

I do think it would be fair to ask for free sandpaper and painters tape since I'm going to have to buy more.

What would you suggest I do now? Specific steps please? I'm not confident I can use a chemical stripper so I'm leaning towards electric sander. Tried to strip an old stained desk once and it's sitting in my basement half finished. I would prefer to switch paint brands entirely but maybe that's a bad idea?

The stairs lead into the basement. Since we've been running our pellet stove I was thinking I should probably work on this at the beginning of the new year, since it's pretty toasy, vs. spring.

Never cleaned up the walls or did touch ups because I knew I was going to be redoing this.

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Another thing that should be a blast, we have three cats. When I did this project, the basement floor wasn't finished so the door wasn't open and the cats were never on the stairs. Last time, I locked them in a room while I painted, put everything back to normal and they never bothered to get near them. Since we've opened the basement door the one cat LOVES laying in front of the pellet stove... should be interesting.

I used BIN primer because the treads were pine and the rest was oak with a sprayed clear coat. We'll eventually replace this area but to me, paint was better than the carpet

Here's the original thread where Paintguy gave me instructions.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/paint/msg0611574610998.html