I have done it. Our floors are oak, but the stairs were pine -grrr --- anyway, I took off the carpet, patched the holes, sanded, stained, and used poly. We are happy with the results. We had a problem where the tread meets the riser in that there were gaps there. We bought some decorative molding, stained that and put it against the rise where the tread meets. Problem solved. I would love to do tiling on the risers. The stairs on the show "Two and a Half Men" are awesome. I would love to have those!
You first need to see what is under the carpeting.
Also, you can purchase stair treads. My son purchased oak treads and installed those on his stairs going to his basement rec room.

Sky,
I am going to do a HUGe blog on this with very detailed info.

Here's a sneak peek:
First, the stairs with carpet:
{{!gwi}}



Stair after carpet and tack strips removed:

{{!gwi}}



stairs sanded (the treads are pine):

{{!gwi}}



This last picture is of the stairs coming up from the kitchen. I primed them and I am using a SW floor paint which is really going on well. The risers are painted to match the trim. We are not done with this part yet - I have caulking and trim to do still.
Still not finished back stairs:

{{!gwi}}

daisyadair LOL for a minute I thought you had a picture of my staircase until I realized it wasn't maple. I have gray carpeting and similar spindles etc. So you're painting the treads instead of staining them to match the wood floor? I hope you post when you're finished. I want to show this to DH. thanks. Oh and I presume you used an electric sander and not hand sanding?

sky

daisy, that's *amazing* - congratulations! I'd *love* to take the carpet off our stairs, too, but I'm wondering-are all stairs, esp. those that are built and sold initially (1978 house) with carpet on them, definitely wood underneath, not plywood or something inferior like that that can't be finished? Or should I be prepared to be replacing whatever there is with something more beautiful if we take the carpet off? We have white oak flooring and I'd really want to have natural wood stairs, not painted (more modern house). I don't mean this question *only* to daisy, but to anyone who might know.

Flyleft, that's a good question. I saw my treads and know they are slabs of some unknown, unremarkable wood, not plywood, but I'd love to have my whole staircase be maple. I don't want to pay a ton of money to have my staircases ripped apart to insert real maple treads.

I can't wait to show DH Daisy's stairs because it's amazing what they have done.

sky

I've been so curious about this very subject. I've been scared to remove my carpeting because of what I might find underneath, especially whether the treads would be just squared off boards that don't really look right without carpet.

Thanks for the posts. I'll definitely keep my eye on this one.

I just did it to my stairs this winter. The carpeting was loose at the curve in the stairs and I knew there was hardwood underneath. Since I ripped up my upstairs and downstairs carpet by myself and re-did the floors, I had been wanting to do the same to the stairs.
The hardest part was getting the paint off the hardwood. The PO had painted portions of the stairs for some reason and then covered it with carpet. I used the same whitewash stain that I used upstairs on the floors.

Mindy

My condo was built around 1976 so I know there's no hardwood underneath. Just hoping it's pine or something similar (not plywood), like flyleft mentioned above.

This project is totally decorating on a teeny tiny budget. Obviously, if money were no object I would rather have stained hardwood treads. I did some sample staining on a tread, and I have seen pine treads stained, and it just wasn't for me.

I would be really surprised if anyone found plywood under their carpet. It's just too flexible and would not be up to code.

My husband has used 3 different sanders for this project. There is just so much paint from when they painted the trim around it originally.

We discussed swapping out the pine treads for oak, and may do that at a later date. You would have to maintain the integrity of the staircase and keep it within code.

I just am so appalled at how much extra it costs just to install new carpet on stairs, then how expensive it is to have stairs professionally cleaned (around $100 here!) that this was just the best solution and I'm loving how much better it looks.

We had berber on the stairs, and I finally was able to find a cat strong enough to pull the berber out with their claws. The carpet was slowly coming unraveled.

Here's some trivia - My MIL has a back staircase to an upstairs gameroom. It has shag carpet on it from 1970. The shag carpet actually goes all the way up the stairwell wall!!! Kinda hideous!

Oh Daisy, you should have given some warning not to read your MIL story if you've just finished eating dinner. YUCK, that's disgusting.

I love how you found a cat to help you in the decorating plans and I can't wait to see the whole thing when you're finished.

Sky

Okay, I've gotta ask, since we talked about this in another thread. Has anyone here ever slipped on the uncarpeted stairs?

I actually slipped on carpeted ones, but my cat loves our carpeted stairs. I live in an old house, and am very lucky to have beautiful hardwood. I was hoping a nice neutral berber on the stairs would go well with the hardwood floors in the LR/DR, and would have more "grip" than the smooth carpet we have now.

Daisy,

I'm SO glad you posted this -- thanks! You know this has been very much on my mind. Could you please be so kind as to show how the flooring ties in at the top of the stairs? That's something I've wondered how to handle. Also, could you say a bit more about the paint you're using on the treads? No sealer over it?

Prairiegirl,

Thank you so much for asking this. Yes, the safety issue did come up on my thread. I'm wondering if there are any stats on numbers of falls and seriousness of injury on wood, versus carpet, versus wood with runner, versus carpet with runner? I would not like to go through all that work only to discover I had endangered myself.

All that said -- there's no question that wood would be a LOT easier to keep clean than carpet!

Sky, I forgot to thank you for starting this thread -- thanks!!

daisy, upon some more research, I have found that some more recent homes do have plywood under the carpet...just like some homes have OSB under carpet...I'm betting we have ply, but I've also found at one site something called "replacement treads"which are supposed to go over carpet-substrate-stair treads. VERY expensive, IMO, for us at this point in our remodel prohibitive, so I'd like to find something similar for less. But now this thread has reminded me that we really will need to get at the flooring once we've seen the back end of this neverending remodel...

We didn't even have plywood, we had MDF. So we used a prybar and removed them. Then bought oak replacement treads at $30 a pop. It required taking the spindles off, for the way ours was designed. PIA, but well worth it. I had fallen down the carpeted stairs many times, but knock on wood, so far have been fine on the wooden ones.

If money is a $$$ I would just paint them until there is $$$ to replace.

Mine was MDF, too. House was built in the eighties.

prairiegirlz, yes, our wood stairs are slippery! When we bought our old house, the stairs and some of the rooms were fully carpeted. The floors underneath were birch, not meant to be carpeted, just a 1980s "update". We took the carpet out and refinished, so now they're beautiful but slippery! Now I'm trying to figure out if I want to put down a runner or just treads on the stairs. Treads would be easier to clean, but I think a runner would give better (safer) coverage. We also need to refinish the risers someday, and a runner would have to be removed and re-installed in that case. So I'm flustered into inaction! Have to do something soon though!

We pulled up all our carpeting and DH installed hardwood, so we wanted the stairs to match. When we pulled the carpeting on the stairs we found pine treads.

Looked like this (that's the original slate floor at bottom of steps):

You can see some of the pine treads in the next two pics:

This is the flooring and new railing we wanted the stairs to match:

The finished project:

We bought oak treads and risers and DH cut each one to fit and labeled it on the edge so we knew which step each piece was was to go on. Spent several nights sanding all those pieces till they were like glass, then we stained them to match the oak floors, then a couple coats of polyurethane, sanding with ultra fine grit (220-300) between coats of poly. DH removed the original pine treads but left the pine risers in place. Once the poly was dry he installed the new oak riser right over the existing pine riser (saved a ton of headaches that way), then installed the new oak tread. Then he installed new oak flooring over the slate at the bottom of the stairs.

I guess different areas have different building codes for stair treads. I've looked into the Wilsonart stair tread solution, and it would have been expensive. So far, our steps are not slippery at all. There is an addative that you can add to the paint or poly to give it some grip. We haven't needed that yet, but I can always go back later and do something - maybe more of a strip or two rather than doing the whole tread.
Here's a coool site I found for some unique stair mats-

{{!gwi}}

Here is a link that might be useful: stairmats

We have found that there is LESS slippage on our wood treads than we had on the carpeted ones.

With carpet, someone was slipping at least every week. Now, everyone had firm solid footing and no accidents!

My oldest daughter has always slipped on carpeted stairs, a bit of a klutz I guess.

Here are some stair mats I found that would really suit my contemporary side:

{{!gwi}}



But, they are like $900!!! and that wouldn't even be enough for all my stairs! Yikes!

On the topic of recently-built houses with OSB or other wood composite products used on the stairs instead of solid pieces of pine or plywood - has anyone here every tried painting non-solid wood stairs? I'd love to see the results if anyone has done this. We have hardwood downstairs and intend to install hardwood upstairs, but I think it would cost a small fortune to do the stairs as well, so I've been wondering if we get away with painting them to match - dark treads and white risers(hardwood is very dark) and installing a sisal-type runner.

Has anyone done this? Results?

The cost of our stairs was not astronomical (we've done everything on a budget and 90% of it DIY to save $ on labor). The railing in the photo above was more costly than the stairs. Cost of materials for the stairs was under $300, the rest was our time ;)

As far as slippery, DH used to slip down our stairs when they were carpeted all the time. The rounded edge of the step with the rounded carpet on top just caused him to slip right off ;D No slips on the hardwood. I do have to keep a rug on the floor at the base of the steps, but that's for me. Too many times at night I've gone down the stairs, and with no rug there it's hard to tell where step stops and floor starts, so I sometimes would almost miss that last step :o

So Patches, you all installed "replacement treads" where you had *taken up* the original risers? I read that replacement treads are specifically designed to be installed the way moonshadow did, right on the original stairs...or do you mean that you got full-thickness stair treads (not specific less-thick "replacement" treads) and installed them as replacements for the mdf?

moonshadow, gorgeous, btw :)

And daisy, I've seen those--LOVE them...never going to own them :)

gwendolynne, another possibility you could price out would be to get the little side pieces of hardwood that go on either side of carpeted stairs--have you seen those? It's like a stair dickey :) (you know, those pretend shirts that are just collars that tuck into something over them). Just another idea. I think we're going to try to figure out how to get full pieces, sometime...although I'm getting stingy in my old age...

Like Prairiegirl I was concerned about safety and have fallen on carpeted steps years ago and donÂt want to repeat that painful experience.

Oceanna, when we were building our current house I tried to find stats on safety and stairs and couldnÂt find anything and now I regret I went with carpet instead of my first choice which was to have maple  insert bang head on wall. I should have listened to my heart instead of my head and the builder. Yes, Oceanna, cleaning wood steps must be easier than stupid carpet.

Flyleft, I wonder what those replacement treads are like  are the actual treads or just a veneer you glue over the step? I know that I really donÂt want to have to remove the spindles like Patches did  way too much work for me and I know I canÂt do it professionally.

Moonshadow, your new stairs are gorgeous and look perfectly installed. I think I must have pine treads. I wonder if I have to remove the spindles or do you just remove the whole tread and replace it with a new one?
Daisy, IÂll have to check out Wilsonart stair tread solution  but I wonder if that is laminate to match with their laminate flooring and not real wood? I wouldnÂt go that stair mat root after all my hard work and expense to get hardwood floors, but it is an interesting solution for those who want some carpet. Boy you have expensive taste, where did you find such pricy step mats?

western_pa_luann and Moonshadow, IÂm glad both you posted that you find LESS slippage because it does make sense and I know our carpets are slippery.

gwendolynne I guess in your situation, you could probably just save some money and have the whole stairs carpeted with a sisal carpet. I did see that some flooring companies have special pieces to match their floor for that piece that starts the stairs  it has the bull nose edge. With that piece in place and then the rest of the stairs carpeted, I think it would look good. ThatÂs our plan B for our home.

sky, are your steps like those in daisy's photo above, with spindles incorporated into the tread?

If so, it would be tricky to do what we did - replace treads with spindles incorporated into the steps. Suppose you could remove the spindles and replace with new (I know, The Domino Effect rears it's head, it always does ;). I say this because DH built that railing in my photos above and once those spindles are in, they are meant to stay in.

If that's the scenario you're working with, I could ask DH when he gets home, or you could probably get some good advice from woodworking forum here. (A man over there was a huge help to DH and I when building the stair rail.)

Moonshadow, I just took a close look and while I have open staircases with spindles on both sides, where the step is looks more like yours where you have walls on both sides. In otherwords, there is additional woodwork between my stairs and the spindles. I have two staircases that I want to do, not just one - yuck. I think though that we will have to have professional help and will probably get it included as part of removing carpet from the hall bedrooms. I just want to know all my options and if it's easy to do then I'll DIY. Thanks for all your help and wonderful pictures. Oh yes, and I think all homeowners know that domino effect LOL.

sky

Sorry I wasn't more clear, we removed the mdf treads and then installed new treads that were oak. I did look into the ones that you could install right over the existing tread but the were expensive and the ones I saw required removing the bullnose front of our existing mdf tread.

It cost us $30 per tread, the poly and then we did replace our spindles. They were cheaper builder ones and we just replaced with similar, so about $100 for spindles and $300 for the treads. And our DIY labor.

I just started this project last night. I have 12 steps on a curved staircase. Only two steps are curved...well actually, they are triangular to accomplish a curve. I am a complete novice, but refuse to be beaten. Please help me to understand some terminology and identify the type of wood that is currently in place. First of all, what is a bullnose front? The wood we have is light caramel in color and has thin straight lines throughout. I do not see any knotholes or anything. Any guesses on what type of wood I have? The wood on the treads seem pretty hard, but the wood on the risers seem to just be soft plywood. I made several divots in the risers trying to remove the carpet tack strip. I made a few small divots in the treads trying to accomplish the same task, but the risers were much easier to divot than the treads. There are some small nail holes that need to be filled, but I'm not sure what to fill them with. I plan to stain the treads and risers a dark mahogany, then I'd like to add a clear sealant which will leave a shiny finish. Any suggestions?

You probably have oak treads and pine risers. I used elmers sandable wood putty to fill the holes in the risers.

I used Minwax stains and wood floor poly. Ace, Lowes, Home Depot has it.

Bullnose means the front edge is rounded over vs straight cut.

Here is a link that might be useful: minwax stain

kams 30, I like your can do attitude. I had someone in for an estimate to replace carpet with hardwood in the finished basement and to make the stairs look like maple wood. They lifted a corner and found we have oak treads and oak risers. The oak was unfinished and looked just like you described.

Sky

We finished our stairs - check it out!

Here is a link that might be useful: Removing carpet from stairs blog

patches, thanks for the clarification. With our luck we have mdf as well.

And daisyadair, beautiful! Great documentation--my DH appreciated it :)

update: DH read daisyadair's blog, got inspired and pulled up the carpet in a corner of the stairs--we've got FIR! The only problem is that the floor below is white oak--DRAT. I love fir, and this was fir from 30 years ago, so it's better quality...(big gaps between risers and treads too, daisy--thanks for the tip on how to fill it)

We can't keep it, can we? It would look too odd to have oak floors and fir stairs? Of course, the one place we turn out to have a nice wood is a place it wouldn't work to keep it...we have fir accents in the kitchen, but no fir flooring anywhere...

I think that you could keep the fir. To me the trick is to not make it look like you were trying to match it, go for a lighter or darker shade. The thing is, you have nothing but time and some sandpaper to lose if you decide afterwards that it's not for you.

Good point (as in *DUH!* I should have thought of that!)...we can always change it to oak if we don't like it...funny how those simple options elude one sometimes when it's one's own house...

We're right in the middle of this at our house too. LOve this thread! Lots of great information. It's definately a BIG job, but I think it will look great when it's all done!

daisy~Love your blog! Very helpful, thanks so much for linking to it here. I noticed you mentioned something about low slip finish, please elaborate.

skypathway~Thanks for starting this thread, please keep us posted on your progress. I got a verbal estimate of $300-$400 minimum for both berber and new cut-pile carpet, inc. padding and installation. Since you have to remove carpet to replace carpet, I guess I could decide what to do when that happens.

It looks like (although looks can be deceiving) we might be able to just remove the carpet and padding, patch and paint the risers and polish the treads. As one option.

I am still very concerned about slipping. I am not sure-footed anyway, and am presently suffering from a foot injury. I have a cat, and little ones always on my stairs (kids, not babies). I do remember my grandparent's had slippery wood steps. I am not fond of laundry baskets and stairs, have two sets of stairs to navigate in order to do the wash.

Wow, Daisy. Your staircase is stunning! How long did the project take from start to finish? I'm going for a similar look. I'm staining the treads mahogany and painting the risers white. I started on this project Friday night. I'm hoping that by the time I finish working on it tomorrow, I'll only have the risers left to paint.

Patches and Skypath, thanks for the advise. I'm going with the minwax. I have one tread that probably needs to be replaced, but I'm going to try a repair job first. It was apparently cut too small, and the building patchworked in some more wood, and over the course of the last 39 years, that patched in wood had deteriorated. I'm using some minwax repair and restorative for now. We'll see how that goes.

Prairiegirlz, The floor and porch paint I used is absolutely not slippery. I'm not sure how to describe it except to say that if you run your foot with a sock on over my hardwood floors, it moves fairly smoothly. If you do the same with the painted treads it's a completely different feeling, not slippery in any way. Sherwin Williams also sells a small container of a sandy material which can be mixed right in with the paint. I decided I'd do a test before adding it, and ended up returning it. I felt very confident that it wasn't necessary with the paint I chose. It only costs a few bucks though, and if you wanted to be completely safe they will even mix it in for you.

prairiegirlz5, yes, when my new flooring is installed, I'll post pictures and let everyone know how we achieved it -or rather how the carpenters will achieve it LOL.

Daisyadair - that's a good idea - to use a finish that is not slippery. I'm going to mention that to the carpenter when they start the job.

Sky

Thanks Kams! We had lots of sanding and patching to do, and then my husband went and got a kidneys stone - so it was about 9 days altogether. Our bottom step was broken and we patched it but forgot to take pictures. Sounds like you are going at a really good pace. It's hard to have the house tore up.

Patches, what is MDF. You said you had MDF.

MDF - medium density fiberboard. If you go to Lowes you will see them next to oak and pine treads.

Look at this post on replace carpeted stairs.

Here is a link that might be useful: Glass Stairs