Ugly Carpeted Builder’s Stairs: The Makeover

We are contemplating a move, and so I decided I should probably do something about the stairs that have ugly, stained beige carpet that I inherited when I bought the house.  I had thought of several different things to do to make them nicer. In the end, if we are going to sell I knew I needed it to be fairly "vanilla" and not too "me."  Because what I really wanted to do was a brown paper flooring treatment.  I love the leather-look it gives!!! 

What I'm going to do is paint. The usual dark brown treads and white risers. Safe, classic, nice. However, because I have to put a spin on things, I'm going to make chalk paint & use that! Have I ever done this before?  That would be a big 'ole no! Have I ever even used chalk paint for anything, much less make my own?  Again, the answer would be no!  So you have a wonderful opportunity to learn from me and all the mistakes I am most likely to make!

I am a researcher by nature and I looked at every DIY stair tutorial out there...at least it felt like it. However, the ones featuring builder's stairs that I could find generally used copious amounts of molding to deal with gaps and huge spaces.  Ummm...have I mentioned that I am on the frugal side?  I admit that may be a massive understatement. Anyway, molding is expensive, unless you just have a bunch hanging around, which I do not.  This means that I must get creative to find other, cheaper, ways to deal with whatever ugliness is lurking under the carpet.

So, here is my tutorial on my bumbling, start and stop stair makeover!

Step One: Carpet Removal

Supplies needed when pulling up carpet:

Large flexible trash bags

Heavy leather gloves

Angle (AKA diagonal) pliers

Lineman pliers (really any plier that works)

Flat head screwdriver

Hammer

Utility knife & extra blades

Coffee can or med sized container to hold staples & small trash

Wood glue

So…first you take a deep breath & mentally prepare yourself for ickiness. Put on your gloves, grab your utility knife & decide how many stairs your want to remove the carpet from at a time. I found that doing one or 2 at a time made it easy to fold and shove the carpet and pad in a garbage bag…but it is really up to you.  Once you decide this, use the utility knife to cut the carpet. I found that cutting just under the edge of the tread nose easiest. Next, grab your pliers or screw driver and pull on an edge of the carpet at the bottom to grab a handful. Just pull, and keep pulling until you pulled the carpet loose up to where you cut the carpet. You may find that it is not completely cut all the way across, so you can do that now that you have it loose.  Sadly, I did not think about taking a “before” picture, with the nasty carpet on, but just use your imagination.

Next just pull up the pad & sigh with dismay at the millions of staples the idiots used to tack the carpet and pad down with. Ok, time to tackle the biggest pain in the ass so far…the tack strips. 

Now, I found that some yahoo used a 2 inch nail on every third or fourth strip just to make my life more difficult! Hopefully you don’t have that issue. I used the flat head screwdriver to pry up the edge of the tack strip enough to try and get the claw of the hammer under the nail to pry it up. Really, I struggled with this. It was hard to get the angle needed to pry with the hammer without risking damage to the wall. Then my Honey came home, heard my muttering and cussing and did the rest for me!  Love that man!!! His method was similar to mine, but more forceful. He jammed the flat head screwdriver under the tack strips not thinking about marring the wood at all.  I think I was being too delicate. So just do what you need to in order to get them up. Sanding and wood filler will help with any gouges or scrapes from your efforts...at least that is my theory. 

Once the tack strips were off of a tread, I then began the removal of the millions of staples on each tread and riser.  Ugh!!! There were sooooo many!!! I would remove the carpet, pad, the tack strips and then the staples a stair at a time. That way I didn't hurt myself on the stupid tack strips. I'm clumsy. Another massive understatement.

If you are like me, you will find yourself in all kinds of positions trying to get a good enough purchase on the damn staples to pull them out!!! Let’s just hope no one was watching. Sheesh! Some of the staples broke close to the wood, if there was not enough staple left to grab hold of, I just nailed that sucker flush to the wood! 

There were a couple of treads that had cracks in them, so once I was done removing the last staple (big celebratory "Yay!")  I used some wood glue and spread that over the cracks, trying to work it in pretty well, and then wiping off the excess.

Here is how they look sans carpet, tack strips, and staples.

Ya see those huge gaps between the stairs and the wall?!? Ugh!!! Time for a little rest and beer or wine to prepare for the next step!