Staring at Stairs

While my Papa was here pressure washing my house this week, (transformation photos coming soon!)  I had him help me replace the carpet on our lower set of stairs. 

The upper stairs leading up from the foyer are cream Berber carpet while the lower set leading down were sporting the old brown shag carpet that matches the den floors.  And since new den floors are in our future, we decided now was as good a time as any to unite the stairs in one type of carpeting.  Especially now since our fur-Bandit has been using the second step as a scratching place and has shredded the old carpet.  Lucky for us, the previous homeowners had a big roll of leftover Berber carpet from the installation that remained behind when they moved on.  Yay! 

Here’s a look at BEFORE (Abby the bear is demonstrating how to climb stairs while holding a sippy cup):

Here’s one more I snapped of Papa, prying off the transition piece from the steps to the foyer:

My original plan was to do away with the carpet on all the stairs throughout the house.  (It’s so hard to clean carpeted stairs without fancy vacuum attachments!)  Plenty of people in blogland have ripped up their carpet and stained the stair treads in lieu of replacing them with hardwoods.  I love the look of painted risers with stained treads.  Here is my inspiration photo, lovely right?

But alas, it was not meant to be, my stairs were never made for that.  Of course.  They are just regular pine with nail holes and a nice big gap running down both sides.  And so, we settled on the second best option… matching the carpet.  Here’s what the steps looked like sans carpet, with the dingy but still cushy carpet padding on the treads: 

After ripping up the old carpet (and trying not to inhale the 7 pounds of particulate filth embedded in the fibers), we pulled out all the remaining staples and gave the stairs a good vacuuming.  Next, we measured the width, trimmed the edge of our new carpet and starting stapling it down over the existing padding.  Here’s Bandit helping to hold the 4x4 we were using as a makeshift carpet stretcher.  Lots of pushing, pulling, smushing and stapling ensued.

And voila!  The finished product:

So much better right? 

Here’s a side by side BEFORE and AFTER for ya!

  

Although it looks a bit strange now with two different carpets meeting each other at the bottom, someday when we get new den floors, the view will be lovely cherry laminate on the floor transitioning into carpeted stairs.  So, what do you think?  You like the new look or do you think we should have stuck out for hardwood stairs?  For now, I’m enjoying the lighter look and also marveling over how clean the new carpet is compared to the Berber upstairs!!

Hope you’ve enjoyed coming along with me while we stare at my stairs.  I’ll be back with updates of our squeaky clean house exterior and deck (as soon as the rain quits for me to take after pictures) as well as a sneak peek of a new painting project I’m working on!  Stay tuned!