I have a regular set of stairs and a 4′ X8′ landing to carpet in my own home. The treads are 1 1/8 plywood and plywood risers.
Getting a floor mechanic out to do this small job is a pita to me and him/her. I would never lay carpet anywhere except a closet because I think I know my limitations and I am not tooled up for seams and streching etc.
But I sorta think I may be able to do a simple set of stairs. Am I nuts? Tell me if I am foolish.
I did do a real quick google search for carpet laying and was disappointed. Anybody recommend a web-site or a book?
Replies
You might be surprised.
My inlaws hired a local carpet company to do the stairs in their house about 2 years ago. It cost them about $200 to remove the old carpet and install the new. Total job time was less than 2 hours. They did the job as a fill in at the end of the day after another couple room intermediate size job across town.
I'd call around and see if you could find someone to do it.
stairs would be the last place I would want to try learning.
Lot of cutting to get right , a seam or two, and tacking to beat the band! Then all those tacks or staples at the backs to be sure it stays and nobody trips on a loose fold.
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agree with piffin; also, the whole outer edge is exposed, mostly at eye level or at least in full view--- you don't want that edge to be raw.
on the other hand, if you are placing a runner that has finished / bound edges, then i have seen accessories for clamping stair runners in place. they are simpl bars that you attach right under the lip of each tread, and also where the tread meets the riser.
The runner is easy enough.But with plywood treads and risers, I thin he needs full carpet.
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http://www.rusticgirls.com/ceilings/carpet-installation-2.html
very first google hit
For a small job, carpet laying pretty easy.
Only a few 'rules'
Keep your knife sharp (swipe it on the whetstone EVERY cut)
tack point toward the wall <G> with 3/4" from tack strip to the wall.
On stairs, adjust the 2 tack strips to just be able to smash the carpet into the gap with what I call a dull spud (3-4" wide chisel type tool with rounded edge)
Do a couple of practice cuts on scrap first if you have never done it to see the angle to hold the knife.
And, on anything with over 1/2" of a pile, Piffin screws thru the top of the carpet into the stair works well in liu of tack strips at exposed edges.
DIY carpet pixView Image
If I can do it, you can.
Taught myself from the Time-Life Home Repair & Improvement volume on floors & stairs.
Of course, I was a lot younger then... <G>
I was very proud of myself - got the carpet for $25.00 for many yards at the Salvation Army store in Jersey City - what a gold mine that place was!
Yup, did my own stairs, too. The lady who had them recarpeted when she bought my house had the "pro's" out 3x before they got it right...<G>
Yep, would add a general DIY comment about anyone who makes less than say $100/hr at their day job :
By the time anyone with even a modicum of skill and ambition finds someone they trust to do their job, they could have done it twice themselves and got it right at least the 2nd time.
There are some skilled artisans (e.g Stan Foster) that almost no DIY could ever emulate, but think that that potential DIY would be making over $100/hr to start with, so could afford that level of expertise.
I'll tackle anything i can take apart and do over. The only two things i wouldn't tackle on my own were finishing my 1500 sf slab and sanding my hardwood floors. Now that i've been tutored on the floors, that leaves one thing!
Hijack of my own thread............
Isn't it interesting what intimadates (sp) or scares us. I'm just a dumb carpenter. I am scared of concrete flat work and big expanses of vinyl or carpet. Have done a lot of electric, plumbing and other fields on my houses.
Leaning towards trying carpet on the stairs. Seems to me to be easier than say a big room with seams and all that goes with it. I have watched carpet layers a million times cover stairs and it looks doable. Just wish I had paid closer attention
I laid a carpet for a lady in a small, 10x11, bedroom this summer. I think it's easier to use the stretcher tool in a larger room, actually. She was also complaining she couldn't get anyone out for such a small job. I charged her four hours and that included the time it took to get the stretcher at the rental place. I also have a pet peeve about layers overcutting corners, so i sneak up on them...takes longer, but they're snug and flat.All you have to do is decide whether to start at the bottom or the top, then go for it. <G>
So - did you start at the top of that bedroom, or the bottom?;)
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"Isn't it interesting what intimadates (sp) or scares us."I think you really said a lot there.
My earlier comment was that *I* would not do it.And we have all the DIY gang chipping in that they have done it.I know from experience what things I either have not enjoyed or do not do well. Carpet is a combination of both - and stairs to me are the epitomie of difficulty in carpet work.Maybe to some degree, I am aware of some of the ways I could screw up while the DIY gang is blissfully ignorant, not knowing what they didn't know, and managing thru luck and native ability dressed up with persistence to succeed! notice that the ones who have tried this and failed miserably are not here beating their breast Tarzan-like and glorying in their prowess!I applaud those who have done it and done it well. If you feel capable while having some measured awareness of how to go about it and how to avoid leaving a trail of blood on the plush and scuffs and slices in the skirts, I wholeheartedly encourage you to go for it.for *me*, I will leave the stair carpet and the plumbing to others, knowing full well that if I so much as touch plumbing, it WILL leak;)
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Plumbing: yet another reason not to allow a "pro" near your house! <G>"blissful ignorance"? Pffffttt!
There are at least two ways to carpet stairs, wall to wall including the riser.
The first is to use a full strip from the roll and drape it down (or up) the stairs. My carpet installer calls this the "Fall". It's a pain in the backside to manhandle a large strip, cut it to fit on both sides while at the same time stretching and bending it to fit the nosing and the base of the riser. It can look good if you're careful but the radius under the nose will be apparent.There are special decorative metal bars that can be used to contain that radius and give the risers a high end look.
The second is to precut individual tread pieces, keeping the grain of the carpet running in the same direction. The forward edge of the piece is placed under the nose of the tread and then stapled securely to the under side of the nose. The piece is then pulled strongly up and pushed back to the base of the riser and kicked into place over a tack strip. It is tucked and cut tight to the base of the riser. No tack strips are necessary along the skirts unless you have a wide tread such as a winder.
All the treads are completed before individual pieces are cut to fit the risers. Here the run of the grain is not critical but I at least would prefer that the grain matches on each riser even if not the same as the treads. These pieces can be just stapled in position or glue can be used, too.
This method gives the nose a very crisp look with a definite shadow line that I find pleasing. The carpet guys like this method because it is faster. It also seems to generate less waste.
Now I am learning something!;)I have never seen it run either of those two ways with tack strip.
I only saw the waterfall method but using a stapler to hold the break at tread to rise change. And I rarely saw one that fit good ALL the way down the flight of stairs. That is a long one to precut straight and parallel.I would have thought the latter method would be slower, but it sure sounds more efficient in materials useage, and if you screw one up, you have only screwed up one at a time.'course around here, all the carpet on stairs is runners anyways. All the full width was in other states.
I always wondered why anybody would want carpet on stairs though.
Might be easier to fall down them with the cushioning...;)
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I also use a higher-density padding on the stairs just bec they get a lot more concentrated wear...and not just from the splinterbutt thumping its way down. <G>
carpet might save me from another skiing accident next time I wax my feet.;)I hadn't been thinking about padding on these. Ralph didn't include pad in his formula, did he?
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Piffin,
Regarding your post about DIY. You've hit the nail on the head. I've done a lot of DIY over the years and read about the same here, but hardly anyone including myself posts about my failures or the things I've had to do twice (or worse). Much of my "ability" to do these things comes from ignorance of not knowing the possible consequences of my actions. I do it because I've got the time to waste and I like it.
The only thing that intimidates me is electricity and garage door torsion springs. Just had a horrific accident in the ED the other day with an DIY fooling with a garage door spring.
Yeah...no intent to insult anybody here, we just each need to know our limits - for instance I used to be able to fill up a plate seven times at one meal....now I got limits.The other kind of garage door spring is dangerous too! I got caught in one with my pinkie finger. It pulled me and my stepladder halfway over. I was hanging on to keep from falling with my other hand on the track, and called for help. Glad I wasn't alone for that one!When I got the finger out of the spring, it was black and blue and missing some skin. It was rolled around about 160° with the tip resting comfortably on the back of my paw, and it didn't hurt a bit - for almost an hour.But it wasn't even broken, just clunky for a few days. Close one!
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bobtim
did you mention if your steps were incased between two walls? If so then I think you could do your steps pretty easily.
Hell anyplace that needed seaming would be a snap, just end on the inside of a tread and start the next piece, no seaming to be done.
I've done this before and I think it ranks down there with tying your shoes for complexity. I use a crown stapler to attach the carpet. Sorta push the nose into the carpet to hide any fasteners and POOF, your done!
Doug
i ripped up my nasty carpet and sanded all my oak floors (ca 1935) two summers ago. sanded, shellacked, then special treatment and polyurethane--- i spent months here on BT getting lots of excellent advice before i tackled it. my only regret is that i didn't do it 24 yrs ago right when i bought the house. but i don't think they had orbital floor sanders then, and i also didn't know about breaktime website in those days. beautiful old, but like-new, floors are heavenly. no more carpets for me. ever. the whole house feels so much cleaner.
Edited 10/2/2007 12:09 am ET by msm-s
I can go you one better: i met a retired parquet floor layer on Knots, whom i inundated with questions about sanding my 1000 feet of hardwood floors. He was getting a bit exasperated answering all my ???, so he said it was too bad he couldn't just show me instead of trying to explain how to use a Clarkes sander. Tix from the UK to the US were cheap then, about $500, so i hauled him over and got the instructions in person. And we lived craftily ever after. <VBG>
Yup, you win!
Any pix of your floor?
i'm trying to finish up a poster layout for an arts festival today- will try to dig up the before and during photos when i can. my craftsman bungalow was built in 1935. slim oak throughout; the living and dining room have a darker trim inlay.
Graphic artist? Cool...When you say "orbital", do you mean the rectangular pads like HD and Lowe's rent or the big discs? I used a drum followed by the big rentangular pad. The pad worked well to remove chatter marks from the drum, but it seems like trying to remove finish with one would take forever...
I've said it before, Splintie...I like your style!
you gurls are better with plumbing anyways - got more experience with it!;)
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HaHaHa!
Truth be known, i'm hiding out here instead of finding out why my sump pump won't stop running. Switch? Float? Oh, the joys of owning a home and being too stuborn to send up the white flag!
dead frog stuck in the switch?
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Not unless Froggie went through the laundry. It's a lidded tub the pump sits in, just for the downstairs bath. Luckily, i've never installed the toilet in that bath yet. <whew>
Edited 10/2/2007 7:38 pm by splintergroupie
Truth be known, i'm hiding out here instead of finding out why my sump pump won't stop running. Switch? Float? Oh, the joys of owning a home and being too stuborn to send up the white flag!
Just to make sure you don't miss the obvious... I installed a sump pump for a customer about 3 months ago. They called me recently because it wouldn't stop running. I thought, with a new pump how can that be?
I go take a look and it turns out that they plugged the pump directly into the outlet. The float switch was supposed to be plugged in first and then the pump plugs into the float switch. Well, no wonder.
I had set it up correctly in the first place, but they had moved some wires around and didn't re-do it properly.
I've been using the sump for four years now, but i threw in a load before i went to bed and woke an hour later to an odd whine. Anyway, no diff on the wiring in the meantime...it just plugs into a dedicated outlet. I seen to have some dim memory of the float being fixed to the side so it wouldn't do this...maybe whatever i used to do that broke. Anyway, i've got enough coffee in me now that i'm reckless enough to go take the top off that thing and see what dangers lurk. Ta ta!
I've been using the sump for four years now, but i threw in a load before i went to bed...
I really have no idea what this means. You threw a load in the sump? A load of what?
Laundry (see my note to piffin above).All fixed! The tie that binds the float switch to the pump to keep it from floating about erratically had disintegrated, so i used a couple nylon ties this time instead of copper wire. Good to go for at least another four years!
Boy, with all the advise here, I should go into the carpet business.
Upstairs tenant in one of the rentals had a roomate that kicked a can of paint down the carpeted stairs. Paint was bright yellow and carpet was very light berber type. it was not a pleasant sight. He hit about two-thirds of the stairs down, plus the landings the door to the bottom apt. and the walls. She asked if I wanted to do the recarpet, and I said no way. I watched when the carpet guy did the first one. Now I wonder if I shouldn't have just taken the money and butchered it up. After all, I own it. :-)
Think I'll just leave that job to somebody else.
Don K.
EJG Homes Renovations - New Construction - Rentals
This sounds like a variation of the folks who think that remodeling their bathroom would be a great beginner DIY project........... "It's a small room so it can't be THAT hard, right?" - lol
I don't do carpet, but I doubt if I would tackle a set of stairs as my first project. Stairs are a real focal point and errors will probably show up like a neon sign.
Back when I was willing to "do it all", I carpeted many floors and stairs, but won't do it anymore. I just don't like doing it, same way as sanding & finishing floors.
Sure you can do it. Go slow. You have a narrow crown stapler? It may not be first rate, this being your first one, but who knows? You might be better than you think. Over cut, then creep up on the cuts by constant tucking and stretching and then do your final cuts.
"I sorta think I may be able to do a simple set of stairs. Am I nuts? Tell me if I am foolish."
You already have enough advice to make this decision, but my two cents worth is....
Carpeting is one of the very few things I have not done. I am, finally, willing to fix a bad edge in a doorway, but that's about it.
Carpet layers are cheap. I can't believe I could ever hope to compete in price.
That said, the above comment about competence comes to mind. You might find someone to do the job, but will the results be better than you would achieve?
If you botch it and have to buy enough carpet to do it a second time, are you still ahead in dollars (not valuing your own time)?
On the other hand, stairs might be more forgiving since you only have to go back to the last inside corner to fix the mistake you just made.
Rich Beckman