I Wonder What's Under the Carpet?

That's how the conversation started on the car ride to the grocery store. 

We were talking about the staircase in our house covered by this green carpet with a lattice pattern -- a choice the previous owner made. It's never been something we like or would pick, and we have had many conversations about removing it. 

Cue the Memorial Day weekend -- four days off of work and no place to go. Sounds like the perfect time to rip out some carpet. 

RISK? That's always the first question I ask myself. What's the risk if we pull this carpet up? If the wood underneath is in ok shape, we paint it. And paint is relatively inexpensive. If it's a disaster, we hire someone to install carpet in a much prettier color, and we've done the demo work for them and painted the spindles, railings and moldings. So all in, it's a low risk DIY project. 

Over the four-day weekend the demo went great. Super easy. And the wood underneath was good. Just pine but paint-able after some sanding and wood putty. Which took a day or so to complete. 

The two landings were an issue; one was just unfinished plywood. But I came up with a plan to use the same vinyl tile product I used in the kid's bathroom -- and quickly ordered a black and white design from Amazon. 

Because that's the plan. A black and white staircase. I was on Pinterest a bit and landed on something like this as inspiration ... 

The BIG advantage, and one of the best parts of this project, is painting this orange/yellow wood that's all over the house. It's very 90's and not very modern. So, if anything, spending the time to degloss them (which we did instead of sanding, from a recommendation from a DIY instagrammer), and paint them a modern black is well worth the entire project.

To look like this ... 

The grey is the primer. The satin black is the final color. 

Spindles are NO fun to paint. Especially three times (one coat primer and two top coats of black). But I found a tip; cover your hand with a plastic bag and a small sock! Dip the sock in paint and smear it on with your hand. It actually worked great. Once the taping was done, I was able to knock out these spindles in 20 minutes. Such a time saver. 

By the end of our weekend, we're only about halfway done. So time after work will be spent tackling this project in smaller chunks. But slow and steady wins the race. 

For instance, tonight I'm hoping to tape off this long run of stairs and paint them after everyone has gone up to bed, so they dry overnight. (It's a pitfall that everyone is always home and going up and down the stairs all day.) 

And I'll do it again the following night on the last set up steps. And again for the second coats. 

Hopefully, in a week or so, I'll have a finished staircase. 

Stay tuned!