Changing Stairs From Carpet to Paint

4 Materials
$50
12 Hours
Medium
If you are tired of ugly, dirty carpet on your stairs, follow this tutorial on how to transform your stairs with paint! All you need is a few days and a lot of elbow grease.
Before: The carpet was old, stained, and covered in pet hair.
Tools needed:
Gloves, dust mask, safety goggles
Prey bar
Hammer
Pliers
Utility Knife
Wood Putty
Sandpaper
Tackcloth
Paint
Brush or Roller


I started at the bottom of the stairs, using a utility knife to cut the carpet loose on the bottom stair. I started pulling back the carpet, ripping out the staples as I went. I went one step at a time, folding the carpet back, removing the padding, tack strips, and staples. My carpet came up in three pieces.
After removing all the carpet, I used needle nose pliers for removing the hundreds of little staples that were holding the padding down and a hammer for a few random nails. I then used wood putty to fill in all the holes left by the nails and staples. Once the wood putty was dry, we sanded the stairs until they were smooth.
Before painting, make sure the stairs are really clean. Tackcloth is great for removing any dust particles. We started by priming the stairs. If you paint every other stair and let dry, you can still use the steps if needed.
Once the primer was dry, we applied two coats of Behr Porch and Patio Floor paint in Grey to the stairs and let dry. The stairs are so much easier to clean and look a lot nicer!
Suggested materials:
  • Behr Porch and Patio Floor paint   (Home Depot)
  • Kilz Primer   (Home Depot)
  • Wood Putty   (Home Depot)
See all materials
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