The stair carpet is finished!

We finally have stair carpet!  Yay!  It's like walking on a cloud :-D

Let me tell you the story....

Sometime back in November time, we were in a retail park and stumbled into one of the big furniture shops that sells everything from dining tables to carpet.  We had a good stroke of all the carpets (sounds creepy but a bit of a must!), and the hubby picked the one he liked.  It got the thumbs up.  I wasn;t sure of the colour to start with but it grew on me the more I thought about it.

But at £26.99 per metre squared, I was left reeling at the price!  We didn't need much to make a runner, but because of the roll widths of the carpet, we would be looking at £200+.  Eek!

I took the name and the colour of the carpet though, and did some googling on the way home.  I found out some online stores that give the same carpet a slightly different name at a much reduced price. Around £14 per metre squared - much more tolerable.

I went into a local carpet shop to enquire about getting the edges whipped and getting it fitted.  The guy in the shop then went on to tell me all the pro's and cons' of getting the carpet whipped vs. folding the edges under.  What I though was going to be a straightforward conversation then left me spiraling with more decisions!  The main con which he kept emphasising was how easily the edge of the whipping can start ravelling if you catch it with the hoover or something.

I went away and ummed and ahhed and decided to go for the folded option.  But then we struggled to find a fitter!  At last yesterday we had someone round to fit the carpet.

Let's just remember what it looked like before:

And now!  The pile is quite deep which gives it a bit of colour variation as some parts are flattened and others aren't.  I don't think I mind that, but it was a slight concern when we bought it as I wonder how it will look with time. I guess only time will tell!

I must admit, the first thing I saw when I walked in was the bottom step:

Where it has been nailed at the bottom, it doesn't look quite right, almost like it has been pulled in slightly the wrong direction.

Apart from that, I'm really pleased with it, and it's a great way to start progress on the house in 2016!

Total Costs

Carpet - £89 incl. delivery

Underlay - Free, left over from our bedroom carpet

Carpet grippers - Free, left over from previous project, and we retained the ones we took off the stairs for re-use.

Fitting - £50

TOTAL = £139

How are your projects coming along?

Preparing and Priming the stairs

Progress has been a bit slow on the hallway as of late, so I really needed to do something to give myself a boost.  Little effort for maximum benefit.

The stairs really needed painting as the old yellow and mustard coloured paint look was really starting to get tired!  But first a little prep...

There were some big old gaps between the steps and the steps had taken a battering with the amount of staples and nails that had been put in them over the years.

So, I started by filling them in.  Some of them were really quite large so I started with Gripfill, hoping that might do the trick.  Some also needed some stripwood to fill the gap as it was that large.

Unfortunately, even in areas with a small amount of filler, it shrunk quite a lot on drying and it all cracked up.

Round 2 of filling.

I went back to my trusty deep gap filler from Toolstation.

There was one particular hole which wouldn't retain any filler.  So I got a little crafty.  I cut out a small section of foil from a foil tray (narrow enough to just be able to fit through the hole) and pierced a small hole in the middle.  I then got a pierce of string and knotted it underneath.

[It just happens there was a big hole in one of the stairs, and one hole in the floorboards on the landing - the following photos are of the landing, but I used the same technique for the stairs]

I then put some gripfill on the upper side of the foil (the side with the longest length of string), and carefully poked it through the hole.

Once I had poked it through, I used the string to gently pull the foil up  and make contact with the underside of the floorboard.  I used a piece of tape to secure the string just whilst it dried, and then added a little more gripfill to try and fill the gap a little bit to start with.

Once dried, the string can be cut.  The hole on the landing I topped up with wood filler as this would be stained to match the floor, but the hole on the stairs, I filled with deep gap filler as this would be painted.

I intended to use Johnstones Acrylic Eggshell Paint in Brilliant White as it claims to stay white and not yellow over time.  I will see how it lives up to those claims in time.  But to use this product it advises you use Johnstones Joncryl Acrylic Primer.  A bit of a sand of all my filler first and I was good to go.

What a difference a bit of paint makes!  I also LOVE the contrast between the white and the wall colour. Yum!

I also discovered the joys of masking tape, specifically yellow Frogtape (for sensitive surfaces).  It has paint block technology to give a really clean edge.  I'd never really had much success with masking tape and it always bled paint underneath.  Confession - I always figured it was for people without any skills to paint a straight line.  That is until now! I LOVE it!

It saves so much time.  Rather than faffing about - just tape on, paint (not even taking any particular care), tape off. Done. I'm sold.

That's only the primer on the steps, I still need to prep  and paint all the spindles and banister on the stairs (a job I'm putting off as I know it will take ages!), as well as properly paint the steps with the top coat, but progress is progress nonetheless, and I'm chuffed.