House to Home - Stair Runner

Before we dive into this series I'm calling House to Home, please know that when we saw our house for the first time just driving by, we knew that it was the one.  We were thrilled that we got to purchase such a beautiful house and it really was move in ready.  All of the before pictures you will see are the pictures that were on the website that were taken when the previous owners lived there. 

Sadly, I didn't follow my number 1 rule in remodeling new spaces which is take a lot of before pictures.  So, that being said, this is all I've got.  I don't want to offend anyone with these before as it was a very good home to the previous owners who were very sad to leave, and we totally understand why.  It's a great house with great bones.

That being said, as soon as we knew we were going to be moving in, my decorating wheels started turning.  I knew from the start that the first makeover was going to be the stairs.  I also knew it would be the most laborious.

BEFORE:

I immediately started down a Pinterest pigeon hole of "stair runner makeovers" and found so many helpful tutorials and suggestions.  Since I have been following the Young House Love blog for years I knew that their stair tutorial was going to be our go-to.

But of course...it wasn't just going to be replacing the runner, it's never just one thing.  In order to get "the look" I was going for, we would need paint.  White paint.  A lot of it.  We ended up going with Sherwin Willimas Extra White Superpaint and, although pricey, was awesome.  Here's how we did it.

Step 1 - Remove old carpet, carpet tacking strips and one bazillion old staples.

We were originally going to try to salvage the old carpet padding, but it was pretty worn down and ultimately I wanted to paint each riser white, which wouldn't have been possible if we left the old padding.  So up it went.

Old stair padding.

Once I started removing the old staples from the padding, we realized that there had been a different stair runner, with different padding from quite a while back.  The original padding was gone, however, there were still staples left in the stairs.  We essentially had to pull out two different sets of staples.  I think my hand was sore for a week.  No lie.

Once everything was out it was time for the most laborious part...PAINT.

2.  Painting the risers and spindles.

This part was.not.fun.  We primed each riser and spindle with a coat of Kilz primer and then ended up doing 2-3 coats per riser and spindle.  I thought it would never end, but seeing the transformation that was happening, it kept me going.  The white paint was so clean and fresh and the whole entry way took on a more polished look.

After everything was said and done and touched up we realized that we needed to add some caulk to the stairs to really make it look seamless.  After adding the caulk it all came together and we were ready to start putting down the runner.

3. Installing the runner.

If I had all the money in the world, I would have gone with a gorgeous Dash and Albert rug.  Since I don't have all the money in the world, I ended up getting a great deal from Target.com on this rug in Navy.  We shopped on Amazon Prime Day and it just so happened that Target was running some pretty great deals of their own.  

After measuring the stair tread, lip and riser we figured out that we needed 3 of these runners.  In hindsight I would order one more than you think you need juuuuust in case and then return it later if you don't need it.  We escaped with using only 3 by the hair on our chinney chin chins.  It was VERY close!

We also purchased a roll of this plush rug pad to put under the runner.  We cut pieces for each stair and stapled those in first using our air compressor and staple adapter.  To help guide the placement of each pad and the runner we measured the same distance from the wall on each step and put a piece of painters tape there as a reference point.

We tried not to use toooo many staples, but we definitely used enough to adhere the carpet to the stair through the padding.  Our initial staples that we bought weren't long enough.  But after buying the correct length, it was pretty quick.

And then, just like that, it was finished.  Our front door opens right up to our staircase and I feel like the updated runner makes such an impact.  It even makes going up stairs just a little bit more fun!

I added this picture to show the finished stairs WITH caulk on the right hand side...such a difference!