DIY Stairs Makeover

Week five/six of the One Room Challenge is here and it's possibly my most exciting DIY to date. We gave our stairs a much needed makeover and it's making me so so happy.

Our home is a raised bungalow. You enter through the front door and immediately are greeted with two different staircases. One had awful beige carpeting leading to the basement and the second set had hideous carpet stickers covering hardwood stairs.

Basement Staircase Before

Upstairs Staircase Before

View of Both Staircases from Front Door

Our plan involved making the two sets the same by painting them white and adding stair runners.

It began with uncovering what was under the beige carpeting leading downstairs. I was hoping for beautiful hardwood stairs but Andrew assumed it would be pretty rough. He was right. We considered buying risers and treads for this set of stairs but it would have added roughly $300 and we are trying to keep this a low cost project.

Andrew started by pulling off the carpet and carpet stickers. There were a ton of staples and a gross amount of sand under the carpet.

Basement Staircase After Removing Carpet

Next Andrew filled in all of the holes and caulked along the seams.

The side pieces were also covered in carpet originally and had tons and tons of holes so rather then try to fill them all, Andrew cut trim to cover them.

Next we used primer and two coats of Farrow and Ball Wevet to paint the exposed parts of the staircases that would not show once the padding and runners were added.

We wanted to add padding under the runners and I ended up finding a good deal on this rug pad that had one grippy side and one softer side and then Andrew measured and cut it up to fit our stair treads. He added double sided tape.

Andrew went through and measured where the padding should be laid on each staircase. The padding was cut one inch narrower then our runner on each side.

We rented a staple gun for half a day from Home Depot to make this part easier.

When it came time to install the runners, Andrew started at the bottom of each set of stairs and worked to pull the runner tight and keep it evenly placed between the staircase. We picked the Loloi Alchemy runners in Silver / Graphite.

This took a few tries and did involve some pulling out of staples and trying again. So patience is required here. It was important to us that the runner lie as flat as possible and that was a challenge as walls are never perfectly straight it seems.

At the top of the basement staircase Andrew used a utility knife to cut the carpet and then we added a metal edging over the carpet and tile. At the top of the upstairs Andrew cut the carpet leaving a couple of inches and then folded the carpet under the hardwood transition piece and stapled it down. This ensured that it would be a nice clean looking line and that the cut carpet wouldn't fray.

DIY Staircase Makeover Reveal

I cannot get over how much better this view is now!

I am in love with these runners gifted to us by Loloi. They are the Alchemy Silver / Graphite by Loloi and they are neutral enough that we won't tire of them but they aren't what I would call a traditional staircase runner.

Gifted Products Shown // Endless Summer Wallpaper designed by Aviva Stanoff and manufactured by York Wallcoverings, wall paint Good Jeans by Clare Paint, Staircase Runner Rugs Alchemy Silver / Graphite by Loloi

The plan breakdown:

Done // Rip out the tile and replace sub flooring and tile
Partially Done // Paint doors and panelling
Partially Done (we ran out oops) Wallpaper
Replace lighting
Build a console table
Replace door hardware
Done // Add new rugs
Done // Refinish staircases and add runners
Add accessories

Wonderful partnerships that are making this renovation possible:

I am so grateful to the following brand partnerships that are supporting this One Room Challenge project!

Hudson Valley Lighting // Loloi Rugs // Clare Paints // York Wallcoverings // Emtek