Upgrading Carpeted Stairs to Beautiful Wood Part 2

Hello again! A few days ago, I showed the prep work that went into making my mom’s stairs from carpeted to beautiful wood! You can see those steps here.*Pun intended* I left off with the stairs sanded and prepped, and my chair rail up.

We Begin Again

The next step was to stain the stair treads. Once they were stained, I added 3 coats of poly following the dry time instructions listed on the can. The next day I installed the baseboards and used wood putty to cover the nail holes.

If you look carefully at the photos above you can see I was sloppy with the stain. This is because I knew we’d be covering the risers and I would be repainting the white trim.

White Paint Time

After caulking the baseboards, I put 2 coats of semi-gloss white paint on the walls from the chair rail down, including the baseboards.

Riser Installation for the Carpeted to Wood Stairs

Look at those beautiful clean lines! Next we tackled the risers! We knew because they were a press board style plywood we would not be able to paint it a solid white so our options were to buy primed risers or do something more interesting with them. We chose to go with a white beadboard for a cost-effective, visually interesting solution!

You may notice I did not apply the beadboard to the very top riser. This is because my mom planned on having the 2nd floor carpet replaced. So we chose to wait. I wanted to avoid the new beadboard being damaged in the carpet installation process. This decision later came back to bite me in the butt.

Caulk Time

Once the beadboard was in place, I caulked the sides of each riser to fill any gaps.

Board and Batten

Then it was time to lay the rest of the plywood strips for our faux board and batten!

Then I painted them the same white I used on the wall. Then I added some more boards.

One Last Paint Job

Once I finished laying the additional boards, I gave them a couple coats of paint. Then I gave everything one final coat to be sure everything was solid. I also painted the small half wall at the bottom of the stairs.

Then I was at a standstill here.

New Carpet

Beautiful? Absolutely! Finished? Absolutely not! See that top step? Notice how that riser is still plywood? Well it was finally time for the new carpet to arrive!

Look at it! So beautiful! She was so in love it! Now, remember before when I said leaving that top step unfinished was going to come back bite me in the butt? Well check this out!

They carpeted the riser! My mom did not notice this until AFTER they had left. Upon further inspection I noticed that not only did they carpet the riser(I guess they didn’t know they weren’t supposed to nor did they ask!) But they did not do it well! The corner of the carpet itself was severely damaged and they damaged the newly painted trim as well! I was not a happy camper!

Fixing Their Mistake

So I took the utility knife to the brand new carpet and cut where the riser meets the top step. Then I had to remove the carpet and the 20 staples they put into it. Once the carpet was removed and the surface was flat I was able to apply the beadboard!

Carpeted to Wood Stairs Reveal

And there she is! In all her complete glory. This took me a month over all, working when I could. It was worth every second of my work. Not only do I love it so much, but my mom loves it. And that makes it so much more worth while!