Carpentry and Woodworking - Replacing carpeted stairs

My husband and I would like to remove the old carpeting from our stairs and replace it with wood flooring or laminate. Any suggestions on what would be the best way to tackle this project and which materials would be the most practical? thanks

Hi,
You might want to take a look at whats under the carpet before you get into buying anything. I would start at the top or the bottom and remove the carpet from one tread to see whats underneath. If it's painted you might want to strip a small section to look at the wood. Most staircases are pretty fair in their orginal state, (look good). Most of the time the stairs are covered to cut down on the noise from people using them.
Good luck,
Trent

This project which also depends upon how you want the finish can be moderately simple to more difficult depending upon the staircase design.......Please post back with a descrption
ex..
closed staircase.......straight run to top
winding staircase
closed top/ open side at bottom
ballastors
wall mounted railings
wall mounted railings to newel posts.

and whether your going to finish the risers and skirts with paint or stain.............suggestion: Paint

I also recommend picking up the Coffman stair building guide......
www.coffmanstairs.com

My wife and I are on the last steps (no pun intended) of transforming our ugly stairs to a nicely finished 11 wooden stair case all for less than $100.00 which included buying one new tread, stairnosing for the top and oak trim.
Here are the steps we did...

1) removed the carpet and saw what kind of hand we were dealt
this was the hardest job because there were three sets of carpet staples to remove. Needle nose pliers or vice-grips and gloves are a must.
2) sanded the treads and stringers. They turned out looking brand new except one that we replaced.
3) painted the risers with texured paint. They were in horrible shape and sanding them would have been a waste of time.
4) We painted the stringers
5) Stain the trim quarter round where the treads and risers meet and cove up under the stringers and stair nosing
6)Stain treads
7) polyurethane the whole shabang and install trim

Total cost
New Tread - 11.00
Quart Kilz Primer - 6.00
Quart of paint - 9.00
Quart of Stain - 10.00
36' Qtr Round - 28.00
36' Cove - 20.00
Poly Urethane - 9.00
---------
93.00



Good Luck!!!!!!!