When we bought our house there was commercial grade (I guess that’s the proper term) carpet in the upstairs and on our back stairway. We had the same carpet at an office way back when.
We had flooring work done prior to moving in and the carpet we chose for a couple of rooms upstairs ended at the top of the back stairs. So for awhile there was the nice new carpet hanging over the top step and then the ugly blue crap continuing to horrible vinyl.
When we redid the bathroom downstairs we went ahead and had the flooring in that part of the house replaced so out went the vinyl. One night after a few drinks, the oppression of the ugly blue carpet on the stairs became too much to bear so beginning around 10pm we tore out all the carpeting.
Then we lived with builder-grade, soft pine stairs for over a year–they still had wallboard compound on them, splotches of stain and splinters. The carpet from our bedroom hung over the top step and I hated that look. In fact, it weighed upon my soul. Late last year we created a contract with each other of things we were going to get done this year. Those stairs were on the list.
Here they are before:
Here they are after:
As you know, I can’t take a picture to save my life and the lighting in this stairwell is unflattering to say the least. It also doesn’t help that today has been gloomy so I couldn’t even rely on sun coming in the back door (it’s going to rain again tomorrow–grrrr). I hope you can tell there’s a 1000% improvement. And, best of all no carpeting hanging over the stair…there’s actually a transition now.
That’s a huge improvement! I like the paint color too. Do those back stairs come right off your bedroom? I lived in a house once with 2 staircases when I was a little girl and I remember thinking that was probably the most awesome thing ever.
Those back stairs come off what’s supposed to be the bonus room over the garage, but we turned that room into our bedroom. This is the first house I’ve lived in that had 2 sets of stairs and I have to admit it is pretty awesome.