Carpeted Stair Nightmare

My husband and his family had lived in our farm house for over 20 years before he and I married. Nothing was done to the stairs except to add more carpet over old carpet. There was a hole in the awful and dated paneling. I decided that it had to be updated.

Time: 5 Days Cost: $60 Difficulty: Easy

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This is what it looked like before I started the project

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See the hole in the wall - it had been there long before I moved into the house!

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This is what it looked like when all the carpet was removed.

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Tacks, staples and nails, I thought I would never get them all out!

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I scrubbed the stairs and then started painting.

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I had to tear the old paneling off and put in a few more 2x4's.

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The stairs did not extend to the wall on one side, so I had to fill it in with 2x2's cut and painted to fit.

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This is after the paneling is up, I still have some painting to do over the edges of the step risers where I had filled in with wood putty.

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Next was to cut padding to put under the carpet pieces.  I did not want to deal with all carpet on the steps again, but had to have something so no one would fall down if they had wet or muddy feet.

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Next I applied vinyl lettering on each step.  First the parents, then the grandchild/children that belonged to each.

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The final one - and my project was done.

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The last step was to paint the 2x4 at the bottom of the stairs.  My husband was not sure he liked it at first, but decided it did look much nicer than the old carpet. 

Materials used for this project:

• Mahogany & White Enamel Paint   (Runnings Farm & Fleet)
• Carpet & padding   (Menards)
• Vinyl Lettering   (Online merchant)
• 2x2 & 2x4   (Left over)
• Paneling   (Menards)