As you know, we are adding lots of texture to the walls of our home. We started by adding some bead board wallpaper to the walls of the laundry room.  And, we loved it so much that we added some to the kitchen, as well.  Then came the horizontal shiplap on the kitchen fireplace.. and the vertical shiplap on the living room fireplace and horizontal on the wall. Well, we started adding texture to the entryway walls.  I haven’t shared that project yet, but you will be getting a glimpse of that in this post.  What I really wanted to focus on was the fact that we added a runner to our stairway.  And I wanted to give you a few tips if you are installing your own runner on your stairway.

Link to our stairway runner on the front steps.

(We still need to vacuum the steps.. I didn’t take the time before snapping the pics.)

We added a Runner to our Stairway

NOTE… we did not do this project ourselves.  Deb didn’t want to.  We found someone who did and installed it for a great price.  I had a bunch of people ask me to share how he did it. From chatting with our guy and watching him, I did get a few tips for those of you who want to tackle it yourself.

Tip 1:  Pattern is key when it comes to installing a stairway runner.

The front stairway in our entryway is a stacked staircase.  (I think that is what it’s called). It means it turns and has another set of steps.  If you are going to get any type of patterned runner, you need to keep that in mind.  We ended up having to keep the runner off of the pie shaped steps because the stripe on each side of our runner wouldn’t match up correctly when he made the turn.  We made an executive decision to keep the pie shaped steps without the runner.  I love the way it looks. It still ties in with the rest of the flooring throughout the entire house.  This runner, with the stripe down the sides, would work perfectly if your stairway is straight up without turns.

Tip 2:  Padding or no padding?

So we had another guy come originally who said he was going to need a padding.  This guy said he didn’t want to use one.  And, the reason being is because of the runner we chose was thick and the sides are already bound.  If we had a regular piece of carpet that we picked for a stairway runner, he would have added a pad and rolled the edges to hold that pad in place.  Otherwise, adding a pad to an already bound and thick piece of material, the edges of the actual runner would roll up after time.

Tip 3:  How much to order.

They told us the typical amount of material to order is 18″ per step, unless your steps are exceptionally large or exceptionally small.  So count the number of steps you have and multiply by 18″.   Don’t forget to add more for any extra landings that you have.  Also, make sure to add extra so you have room for error. I think I added 3′ extra.

Tip 4:  How to attach a stairway runner.

The installation looked fairly simple.  He started at the bottom and attached the runner to the very bottom of the first riser with small headed staples. He pulled the runner up to right underneath the bullnose of the first step and attached it with more staples.  Then, he rolled the runner up over the bullnose and across the top of the tread, and stapled into the riser on the first step.  And, then continued on until he got to the top of the stairway.  So basically, there are two sets of staples on each step… one set in the crease of the riser and the tread, and one set underneath the bullnose of each step. He said some people staple all along the sides of the runner up on the steps, but he doesn’t like to do that.  I’m glad he didn’t, as this looks nice and is very functional.

I love the way this turned out.  It added texture and a lot of interest and really warmed up the steps.  It looks like it has always been there in my opinion.

I will be sharing the entire project on the stairway wall once we are done.  As you can see, I still need to paint the walls which will make it look completely different.  And Deb needs to finish the entire entryway.  But, I wanted to share the stairway runner with you all today.