Today I am sharing our easy DIY stair runner! The stairs on our carpet were so old, so dirty and literally starting to pull away from the steps. After we installed our vinyl plank floors on the first floor, which I LOVE, the old ugly carpet on the stairs really stuck out like a sore thumb. Well, one quiet Saturday we finally decided to rip them out and re-do the stairs! This project was fun, affordable and seriously only took us a day! I’m so thrilled with how they turned out, but we definitely learned a few do’s and dont’s along the way. Here is our DIY Stair Runner!
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First, we removed the old carpet and then I took to the stairs with a good pair of pliers to remove all the staples. While I did that, James went to the store to buy a the supplies. I pulled nails for a couple hours and then when James came home, he sanded the stairs with an electric sander.
Supplies:
I don’t have the exact products we used because we did this project several months ago! But I linked similar Amazon products here:
- carpet stair runner (we found ours at Home Depot)
- carpet tape (I think we used 3 boxes, but could have probably used another)
- carpet staples
- staple gun
- paint and paint supplies
- sand paper or electric sander
- pliers to remove staples
- caulk or woord glue (we didn’t use this, but we should have done something to fill the larger gaps int he wood)
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Next, it was time to paint. I had white floor paint left over from our DIY Stencil floors, so we just used that. And you don’t have to paint the whole step because the majority of the step will be covered with the runner.
Now, learn from our mistakes! If you have older stairs like we do, there are probably some gaps or cracks in them. I didn’t really think about how this would look at the end but I wish we would have filled the larger cracks with caulk or wood glue BEFORE painting them. I tried filling some of them with paint, but that only got me so far. But for now, I don’t really notice them unless I am looking for them. But it still annoys me and at some stage, I would like to go back and fill the larger cracks and re-paint.
Related: DIY Stencil Painted Floors – What You Need to Know
Anyways. Finally, it was time to lay the runner! We started at the top of the stair case and worked our way down, because it was easier to see what we were doing. We used carpet tape at the base and toe of each step. Then, we used a staple gun to secure the carpet at the base or back of each step.
We did not use any carpet pads underneath, but I know a lot of DIYers do lay carpet pads on the top of each step. I’m not sure why we didn’t do this, but either way it doesn’t seem to bother us. They steps still feel comfortable and are holding up well.
It was kind of tricky to get the carpet to run down the stairs straight! It required lots of pulling and stretching and it was definitely a two-person job. But after a few re-dos and heated discussions, we got it down! My advice is to make sure you start of straight and take your time on each step! Double check you’re happy with that step before you move on to the next.
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Right! So, just to remind you, here is the BEFORE….
Related: DIY Vinyl Plank Floors
And here are pictures of the AFTER!
Overall, this DIY stair runner project was not that hard and it only took one Saturday! I feel like we got a lot of bang for our buck here, spending around $100 for the stair runner and supplies.
We really love how it turned out. Here we are about 8-months later and its holding up well! So grab a staple gun and get to it!
DIY On,
*This post contains affiliate links. That means, I may receive a commission for some of the links in this post- at no cost to you. See our Disclaimer page for details*