Cost of carpet on stairs?

[Susie]

Before we moved into our house in June, we ripped out all the carpet on the first floor and second floor.  The plan was to put in cherry hardwood floors everywhere except the kitchen, laundry room, & bathrooms.  Even though we had a month between closing and move-in, the flooring guy's timeline was delayed, and we only barely got the floors finished in time to move in.  The stairs didn't make it into the timeline, so we had to move in as they were:  the only remaining piece of 1994 carpet in the house.

3 months after moving in, I'm still struggling with the feel of living among a million half finished projects, still trying to get the boxes fully gone, and I'm overwhelmed by the idea of going through hardwood floor finishing again, right in the center of the house.  The carpet that is there is gross, and I need an easy fix.  I also don't feel 100% sure enough of what I really really want for the stairs to spend $$$$ for my forever hardwood stairs.  I just need a "for now" solution that isn't gross/stained.  

I am thinking about calling a carpeting place to just do new carpet on the stairs themselves.  It would be the only wall to wall carpet in the house, which does feel weird, but IDK what solution would be better?  The walls are SW Worldly Gray and I'd pick something that just blends, and plan to revisit when we're feeling more settled.  

I have carpeted stairs before at our old house, but it was part of a larger project so I don't remember about cost.  Any ideas?  I'm ideally hoping to throw $1k or so at not hating the stairs while I focus on other stuff, and collect pins on Pinterest of pretty stairs.

[acr]

For our stairs - it was roughly $875 for materials & $175 for labor.

This was as a part of replacing carpet in other parts of the house too, so this is probably a slightly discounted rate than if we only did stairs.


ETA: further breakdown. $6/per sqft was the cost of the materials. Our stairs are about 144 sqft. We went with a low shag patterned carpet for the stairs so that it complemented, but didn't match the upstairs flooring. 

[dutchgirl678]

Several years ago we redid our entire house with bamboo flooring except for the stairs. It would have been very cumbersome and expensive to do the stairs with hardwood so we went with carpet. I think you could get it for around $1k but I don't remember how much we paid for ours. You may be able to get a good deal on some smaller batch of leftover carpet.

[mccallister84]

Last year we paid $1400 to recarpet our basement plus steps so I would think you could come in right around $1000.

[purplepenguin7]

I forget how much per sq ft, but we just paid under $900 to carpet our stairs plus narrow hallway. This was from Empire because we needed something cheap and fast but also got a quote at around $1,100 from a local carpet place. I think you could easily get under 1k, especially if you consider it as temporary and go for a lower (but still nice) quality.

[orval]

Proably not helpful, but we just paid $12k for living, dining, 4 bedrooms, large hall and stairs. We also had to have our stairs bound on the edge since we do have hardwood showing on the edge. We got a mid range carpet.

[hazelden]

I'd be curious about what the stairs look like under the carpet. I lost all my patience with our stair runner at our old house and just ripped it out one day. DH wasn't thrilled, but whatever. I painted the treads black and the risers white. Doing two colors means there's a lot (a LOT) of cutting in, but it looked really nice when it was done. Painted stairs might be a good temporary fix until you can make a permanent decision. Painting them all white would make it much less of a pain.

[Susie]

Sept 29, 2021 17:03:43 GMT -5 hazelden said:

I'd be curious about what the stairs look like under the carpet. I lost all my patience with our stair runner at our old house and just ripped it out one day. DH wasn't thrilled, but whatever. I painted the treads black and the risers white. Doing two colors means there's a lot (a LOT) of cutting in, but it looked really nice when it was done. Painted stairs might be a good temporary fix until you can make a permanent decision. Painting them all white would make it much less of a pain.

I saw what the rest of the house looked like with the same carpet torn up, and I’m sure the stairs would be the same: subfloor that’s in pretty rough shape, especially after removing tack strips and staples from the carpet padding. I think pulling up a runner and pulling up old wall to wall are different ball games when it comes to what you’d find beneath. We need to cover with more than paint.

[dutchgirl678]

With little kids I wouldn't do wood stairs anyway. It will be so loud when they are running up and down.

[bittybomb]

I added a runner to our steps about a year ago, and it was about $1500. But we have a turn, and had the edges bound, so I'm sure that upped the price a bit.

[icedcoffee]

How long would it take them to do the stairs? I know it’s annoying but I’d probably just get them redone with hardwoods and suck it up for the time. I think you’ll regret carpet in the long run. Especially with shedding dogs. Vacuuming stairs sucks.

[bittybomb]

Sept 30, 2021 12:06:16 GMT -5 dutchgirl678 said:

With little kids I wouldn't do wood stairs anyway. It will be so loud when they are running up and down.

And the falling!  We had naked steps for maybe 6 months. After the 5th slip down by a kid running, we got the runner.

[orval]

I think bare stair treads are not like sub floor. We had some going to our basement. They were decent wood. I actually refinished them myself to match the laminate we put in the basement. You might want to see what is under the carpet. Although I would prefer carpet myself for the main level.

[maudefindlay]

I would do wood on the stairs. Carpeted stairs get so much wear and tear and I think will look odd being the only carpet in the house. We have wood stairs and 3 kids and no one has fallen on them.