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So, I’m taking a short break from a project we’re doing at my parents house. The main stairway in the home is seen immediately upon entering the front door. It was carpeted. Old carpeting, mind you. It was a mess; dirty, frayed, etc. It had 17 years of hard living, so you can imagine it’s state.
My parents intend to replace all the flooring in the home and have been saving to do so. Their goal is to have it done next year. The stairway has been a bone of contention with my Mom for ages. She hates it. She’s been embarrassed by its appearance for years and was recently talking about it. My Step-dad hasn’t wanted to spend money on it, when they’d only be replacing it when the new floors are installed. Plus, he works 2 jobs, so doesn’t have a lot of time.
Long story short, we decided to surprise my Mom and do a quick DIY to make the stairs presentable until they’re able to have the floors done. We’re almost finished and it’s looking quite nice.
Because of the simplicity and low cost, I thought I would share the project info. The steps (no pun intended) are listed below:
1. Pull up the old rug.
2. Remove all visible nails and staples.
3. Use a palm sander to clean up and smooth out the remaining plywood.
4. Vacuum and prep the stairs for painting.
4. Caulk any holes or blemishes.
5. Paint the stairs. Use 2-3 coats, depending on the state of the plywood. We chose white, but obvi any color will do.
6. Place stair treads. These are necessary to prevent slippage. Amazon has a wide variety for short money. If you don’t use treads, you’ll need to buy non-slip paint, which contains sand to give it texture.
This is less than a day project. We started at 10 AM and are at the final step. The most time consuming was the paint, as we had to allow drying time between coats. Luckily, we only needed 2. The total cost was just under $60 ($35 for paint and $24 for very cute and colorful carpet treads).
The final result is quite nice. It’s bright and clean looking. My Mom loves it so much, she said she didn’t care if they ever changed it. She’s pretty cute.

I love these small low cost DIY projects. They’re lots of fun and look great.