Stairs leading directly from a living room or central hallway look a lot more attractive and inviting when carpeted. And, a carpeted stairway can quiet your home by softening footsteps and absorbing sound waves. Carpeted stairs are safer, too, lessening your chances of slipping. Here are directions on how to carpet a stairway.
Begin by measuring the width of the stairway and the overall length of every individual stair. You should never lay down carpet in 1 single long piece on a stairway as it’ll come loose in approximately a year and become a tripping hazard. Measure the depth of the stair and add to it the height from the stair below it. Learn more about carpet squares here.
Use your utility knife and straightedge to slice one piece of carpet for every step on the stair. It’s OK to create the piece a very little larger than your measurements as you are able to trim off the surplus later. Flip the carpet over plus makes the cuts from the underside down. Make sure to work on a surface which you don’t mind accidentally cutting or scarring.
Use the identical measurements to cut tackless fastening strips, additionally known as tack strips, for your floors. These are small lengths of wood that have barbed tacks on the top to which the carpet can adhere to when it’s laid down. They also come with nails driven to the strips so you are able to nail them securely to the floor.
Lay one tack strip on each side of the stairway on each the vertical inclines and the horizontal steps. Use your hammer to securely nail the tack strips in place.
Place the first piece of carpeting onto the underside step and be sure it fits snugly into place. There should be a little carpeting flap that goes up the incline to the next step left at the top of your carpet piece.
Beginning with the very bottom of the carpeting, place the handheld carpet stretcher approximately a 1/2 in. from the edges of the carpet, then strike the rear of the stretcher together with your hammer to seat the carpeting on the tack strips underneath it. Do this to the other side and work your way up till you’ve affixed the entire carpet piece, but not the flap at the top.
Place the next piece of carpeting on the following step. Now make certain the bottom edge the carpeting strip slips under the flap of the previous strip. Then seat the carpet onto the tack strips as before. Repeat Step seven until the complete stairway has been carpeted. Use the knife to cut off any excess carpeting on the sides of the stairs.
Posted under flooring options
This post was written by admin on May 15, 2010
