I thought it would be cool to have a thread where we can ask advice from one another on decorating or home improvement ideas.

Here is my newest dilema.  We are planning on tearing up our old carpeting (going up the stairs, in the upstairs hallway, and in the bedrooms), and putting down a wooden or nice laminate flooring...BUT, our steps are ugly underneath the carpeting...and I don't know what to do with them. Do they make runners that extend the entire width of your staircase (so that none of the ugly steps are showing)? Any ideas? Also, have any of you painted your steps before? What color? How did they turn out?

I thought it would be cool to have a thread where we can ask advice from one another on decorating or home improvement ideas.

Here is my newest dilema.  We are planning on tearing up our old carpeting (going up the stairs, in the upstairs hallway, and in the bedrooms), and putting down a wooden or nice laminate flooring...BUT, our steps are ugly underneath the carpeting...and I don't know what to do with them. Do they make runners that extend the entire width of your staircase (so that none of the ugly steps are showing)? Any ideas? Also, have any of you painted your steps before? What color? How did they turn out?
My brother had this done and very quickly went back to carpet on the stairs. The noise of none carpeted stairs is UNBELIEVABLE and they were draughty too. They have carpet fitted to the stairs all the way across the tread and it looks really good.

It is really hard to give you advice without seeing what it looks like and such. A few years back when we took over the whole house, the front stairs which is hard wood, probably either oak or maple were a mess due to years of people coming in with wet shoes and such. Carlos took a sander and went to town on the stairs. There was dust EVERYWHERE!!!  :P And then he polyurethaned them (at least 2 coats-maybe three). Not too sure if you can see it but here is the end result. 



Cat

^Those are lovely pictures, Cat!  :)


We have a single-story house, so I really can't give you any advice regarding what to do with your stairs...

We do have a nice laminate down in our living/dining room and hallway area that my hubby installed a couple of years ago...and I must say I love it!  It's so much easier to clean than carpeting!  :D 

^Those are lovely pictures, Cat!  :)


We have a single-story house, so I really can't give you any advice regarding what to do with your stairs...

We do have a nice laminate down in our living/dining room and hallway area that my hubby installed a couple of years ago...and I must say I love it!  It's so much easier to clean than carpeting!  :D 



Thanks. I would love for Carlos to do that with the dinning room but there are a few problems with that:

1. It is a much bigger room and it would be more work for him to do and it doesn't seem fair to ask him to do it.
2. A bigger room means more dust EVERYWHERE!!!!
3. Keeping the cats out of the way.
4. Keeping US out of the way since it is in the center of the house.


Cat

thanks for the advice guys! Cat, your stairway is beautiful..I would love for mine to look like that! Maybe once I tear all of the carpet off..I will post some pics of it. :)

Lovely staircase Cat. I should add that having a child charging up and down the stairs accounted for a lot of the noise polution in my brother's house.

We've been living in this house for 35 years and I don't think we have any more money to decorate right now.

It is really hard to give you advice without seeing what it looks like and such. A few years back when we took over the whole house, the front stairs which is hard wood, probably either oak or maple were a mess due to years of people coming in with wet shoes and such. Carlos took a sander and went to town on the stairs. There was dust EVERYWHERE!!!  :P And then he polyurethaned them (at least 2 coats-maybe three). Not too sure if you can see it but here is the end result. 



Cat


Beautiful.  :)

Yes, we have been getting ready to do some major changes to the house. We are putting a new front porch and porch roof on this spring...currently our old porch is all ripped apart.  Then, like I said, we are tearing up the carpets and putting wood floor in. I also want to paint most of the rooms, finish our kitchen (which is half done...I need to get tile for the backsplash..and I want to re-tile the floors with a black/white checkered theme), and I want to redecorate Vaughn's bedroom...we are doing a space/astronaut theme). Yes..we are going to be very busy this spring/summer! :)