Re-Discovering Original Hardwood Stairs

We started the day with carpeted stairs in our 120 yr old, 2600 sq. ft Victorian project house. The same dreaded gray-beige-smelly-ugly-old carpet that plagues most of the upstairs. Over a year after moving in, that crap still crept all the way down the stairs.

Me: “Those stairs are going to look so much better when we get rid of the carpet. Wish I could just rip it out.”

Hubby: “I’ve been expecting to come home to find you ripping at it every day for the last year.”

Me: ((Riipppppp)).

6 hours later, the original hardwood stairs were uncovered and clean, showing off how well they can be preserved covered by stinky carpet for 40 years. Except the 300 bajillion carpet pad staples. Those sucked.

Before

Heck yea! Here’s what we’ve done so far:

• Ripped out all of the carpet.
• Tore off the carpet pads.
• Shop Vac’d.
• Ripped out the stair grips (WTF are those anyways?!)
• Shop Vac’d.
• Pulled out the tack strips.
• Shop Vac’d.
• Pulled out the bajillion staples.
• Shop Vac’d.
• Ripped out the retro-fitted phone cable running up the stair trim.
• Shop Vac’d.
• Shop Vac’d.
• Dinner. Drinking.
• Attacked each stair with Simple Green and a rag.
• Drinking. Shop Vac’d.

They still need a deeper clean (probably old toothbrush style torture), and some scratch repair from the previous staples-gone-wild carpeting. For now, we’re pretty happy with the improvement from a 1-day impromptu project.

Happy ending. Since we had no clue what was under the carpet before I started ripping (#PointOfNoReturn), we lucked out with honey-colored finished hardwood stairs waiting for us. Bye-bye, carpet. Hello bright, gorgeous staircase. The stairs look wider, brighter, and more inviting. One step at a time…