SHOP PRODUCTS
Houzz Logo Print
kenstl

Staircase Carpet to Hardwood project

kenstl
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago

I thought I would start a post on a project we are undertaking of changing over our staircase from carpet to hardwood. This is DIY project and hopefully it it can be of benefit to someone else out there thinking of doing a similar project. I have to mention that the success of this project would not be possible without the help from my father in law and my wife.

We have a staircase that is open on both side, heading in to our lower level / basement (atrium ranch home). I called a couple of stair contractors and neither of them was too interested in the project when they saw photos of how it was made and their verbal quote was out of our budget.

The staircase has treads and risers made out of lumber, and then finished off in drywall on the sides and undersides. After going through a number of options, we landed on using an overlay custom built tread in oak. One of the big issues was trying to put a plan together that would cover all of the gaps on the side of the staircase, so that it would look like a clean install vs a retrofit. The stair case has 14 steps and 56 spindles. So far we have completed the following steps:

1. We ripped off all of the carpet. It was really old and dry rotted on the window side of the staircase.

2. We cut out all of the spindles. We plan on reusing them, so we cut them off at the bottom with a reciprocating saw. We were able to pull them out (a lot of twisting and turning) without any damage to the top of them. We are hoping to be able to trim them to the needed length on the new install.

3. Cut of all of the "nose" off of the front of the treads. After cutting them off with circular saw, I then went back and used a electric planer to get the leading end of the nose flush with the risers.

4. The spindles had a threaded metal shaft in the bottom of them, that was screwed in to the stop. After cutting them out, there were some that were able to unscrew out of the step, others we used a grinder on the remnants to make them flush with the top of the step.

5. After a lot of brainstorming, we decided the best way to trim out the side of the staircase would be to install a trim piece which would give us something flush with outside of the riser and the stair tread. We made a cardboard cut out for a pattern, and they cut that pattern out on wood that was planed down to 1" thickness (the measurement from the outside of the staircase to the outside edge of the tread and riser.

I'll post some pictures of where we are up to this point. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this project will turn out looking like we hope!

Comments (12)