I was going to call this post ‘the truth behind stair runners’ but felt like it sounded a bit murder mystery for a blog post, but I really wanted to talk about the carpet specifically before I did a tour of the hallway. Mainly because: who knew a stair runner was so tricky?!
I should probably start with why we wanted a stair runner. Firstly, we wanted carpeted stairs rather than wood as it feels safer underfoot and with Peggy’s eminent crawling/walking we wanted a safe environment for her (obviously we’ll be looking at stair gates, too!), it’s the only part of the house with any carpet at all and we thought it would pull everything together.
But we still wanted to tie in the original elements of the house, as we have tried to keep to its heritage as much as possible – so wanted to see the original floorboards (even if they were painted).
We had a runner in our last flat which ran upstairs and loved it (see post here) and wanted to recreate it here, but as this hall gets no natural light we painted the floor underneath white to help bounce more light around.
So you could say we knew what we wanted.
But it turns out, carpets aren’t a ‘one size fits all’ scenario. Firstly, I didn’t realise than runners on a landing are quite rare and we were met with odd looks from carpet shops. We’d only ever done this so found it quite unusual – apparently runners are popular on stairs and then the landing is carpeted, especially for tripping hazards (oops, sorry Peggy!). And if you want taping, it works out far more expensive than a carpeted landing (but you already know I don’t like to compromise).
Next. We wanted Roger Oates carpet. I am a big fan of stripes, but after having the pinstripe in our last place I wanted something different – maybe herringbone? They had some amazing ones but we were quoted £7k-£8k, I’m not saying it’s not worth it but we didn’t have that lying around. As it was we had to sell a load of camera and electrical equipment to pay for the carpet we eventually went for (which came to around £1800 including taping and fitting).
The amazing hallway was one of the reasons we fell in love with this house – the width, the feeling of space, the lovely turn at the bottom of the stairs, however, all of these factors mean that everything came in a lot more expensive.
Our last runner in our flat cost £300 as we could buy a remnant for the not so large space (I would definitely recommend this if you have a smaller area to cover!).
So we started looking again, back to stripes, but turns out you can’t really have striped carpet if you have a turn in your stairs because the joins wouldn’t match. It is possible, but they couldn’t guarantee it would look good, or as I imagined. I said ‘rubbish! I’ve seen it on Pinterest’ but when I held up the images, they were all Roger Oates carpets. Roger can do turns with stripes, clever old thing, because in fact it’s not really a carpet, it’s a weave so can be stretched around (why it’s so pricey – but according to sources, it is also very difficult to clean – trying to make myself feel better here).
I have since found out that stairs at a right angle are easier (see Kate’s advice later), but turns are tricky…and then the guy in the carpet shop saw that we had a turn at the top of the stairs and then it split in two directions and he said no chance, we’d have to go for something simpler.
So this is when we went for beige carpet. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I’d want beige carpets but sometimes? Practicality wins. I love our beige jute rug in our bedroom and the idea of sisal, but it felt a bit scratchy underfoot (and again, sisal is very hard with a turn!), especially with Peggy crawling. So we went for a wool carpet (this is actually Kersaint Cobb ‘Pampas Boucle’ via a local shop called Plush Flooring) that had the look and feel of sisal but was softer and long-lasting.
And I learnt from Kate from Mad About The House lately that wool carpet is better for asthmatics as it traps dust, it can be recycled, plus it is naturally fire resistant. So there you go!
But I still wanted something different and was missing the stripe in our hall. We knew we wanted taping on the edges, rather than whipping, mainly because we had it in our last place and loved it (and didn’t get to live with it long enough before we moved!). But again, most carpet shops only offer a few colours – black, grey or red if you’re lucky. There is far more choice of colours with whipping, however.
It is important to point out that taping is pricey, it is what put the price of this carpet up – the edging is almost as much as the carpet itself. We knew this from our last flat but still wanted it.
We left the carpet store a bit disappointed. As nice as grey edging would look, I had to at least see if there was another option. I went home and searched for hours on Google images and Pinterest (PRO tip: Pinterest is SO much better for these types of image searches as it’s a more creative space). I found loads of amazing images – tons of different taping options and even a STRIPE taping – but they were all US based sites. I even tried Etsy in the hope of sourcing my own taping! No luck.
On Chris’s search, he found one shop who did loads of different taping but you had to also purchase the carpet (and guess what? They were more spenny), and then he remembered he used to work in a carpet shop for his first Saturday job so called up the store (Higher Ground) for their advice, maybe they had a contact they could pass on? Turns out, they sold stripe taping no problem, sent us some images and they had what we wanted!!
We called Plush Flooring and asked if it was possible to bring in our own taping and add to their carpet and they agreed to do it for us.
We were almost there. This hall has taken almost 2 years of solid work now, and we have been painting most nights to get it ready, so I just didn’t want to compromise on how we wanted it after all the sweat and tears!
That’s the one big piece of advice I would give: it’s your house, you have to live in it, so don’t let shops tell you how things ‘should’ be done if you think there might be another way of making what you want work.
With the fitting, we were told our hall was the trickiest the fitter had seen! Great. But he did a superb job. The only problem was: yes, you guessed it, the blimmin’ turn! The carpet fitter wanted to cut the carpet so that it was the same length all the way down, which just didn’t make sense when the steps themselves were bigger, and he also suggested on the final step it finish as a straight line, rather than curve the same way as the step. I really pushed for this, we worked through it together and I am so happy with how they turned out.
So that’s the longest story in the history of the world about a stair runner. Hope you stuck with me and it offered some food for thought!
I also wanted to share an image of how to do a stripe stair runner right when you have a 90 degree angle on your stairs, let Kate from Come Down To The Woods show us all how it’s done (and she has shared her top tips on runners below, too!).
1. Embrace the turn.
If your stairs do more turns than a ballerina, don’t stress. There will always be a way to make your perfect carpet work. Do your research and save images that you love. It’s always helpful showing your fitter exactly what has inspired you, they may never have seen it before.
2. Make a statement.
Don’t be afraid to go bold on the stairs. A carpet can make as much impact as a piece of art. They are often the first thing that you see when you enter a house, make them a taste of what your home has to offer.
3. Light or Dark side?
Stairs are tricky, too light and it will show marks and too dark will show up lint. A pattern will help to hide any marks or dirt. If you decide on a plain carpet a medium tone will work the best.
4. Stripes
One of my favourite designs to use on the stairs. Perfect if you want to make a statement but are a little more reserved. Stripes will give the feeling of flow from floor to floor and the choice is vast from bold to neutrals. As a rule, the more turns that your staircase have, the narrower the stripe, its much easier to hide the discrepancies with a smaller stripe.
5. Whipping and borders.
If choosing a stair runner, the edges will need to be whipped to prevent fraying. Consider making a statement with your whipping. Use the whipping to add personality to your runner, a bold choice will make the carpet really pop. Alternatively borders can be added. This is a great opportunity to explore not only contrasting colours but also differing textures. Leather, cotton, suede, jute or hessian could be used to add depth.
Lizzie Crocker, interiors designer at Studio Tallis shares her tips:
1. Choosing the right fabric
I always advise wool for stair runners as its the easiest material to clean and most durable, which is very important when you have children, and a lot of foot-flow up and down the stairs daily! Sisal is also a great alternative if you’re looking for a more natural look, but make sure that you choose a colour and design that has a lot of striation (linear marks) so that any marks or spillages can be disguised as unfortunately it is very difficult to clean! But don’t be put off, as once fitted in a home it looks very beautiful and is one of my favourite looks.
2. Go for colour
I love a colourful runner and there are so many beautiful options out there to choose from making it extremely accessible to everyone (and their budget!). As stairs are usually only small portion of the house you can absolutely afford to use colour here without it becoming too overwhelming. Stairs are also usually the first thing you see upon entering so I always think it’s nice to have an inviting runner to lead you through the house!
3. Try some DIY
Painting a runner through the house you will get same affect but at a significantly cheaper cost, or depending on your taste you could paint the stair risers another colour to be a bit different. I’ve seen some wonderful examples over the years which have inspired me to do at my own home and projects I’ve worked on!
Fab.
We put wool carpet in our stairs 8 years ago , it has now worn out on some edges so time to replace . I wanted a runner last time but with two landings off it , I came unstuck, no carpet shop being able to do a look I imagined . It drove me potty. This time I will endeavor to win !
I think Pinterest has really opened up interiors and how things can be done! Hope you get what you want this time xx
Your staircase is a triumph. You can tell how much time and love went into it. You were absolutely right to hold your ground on the turn at the bottom too. Brilliant useful post too, we will be doing our stairs next year so I will refer back to this!
Thank you! Glad it’s useful xx
Stunning & worth it! Admire your tenacity!
Your hallway and stairs is looking fabulous Alex. Great tips there too .. thank you for sharing xx
Your hallway is looking gorgeous Alex… great tips too thank you! Xx
Your use of colours is absolutely splendid!
SO beautiful! We’ve been itching to remove our horrible brown striped runner (think the print on boys’ school disco shirts in the early 2000s) and replace it with something beautiful like yours but we have a revolting little cat who loves clawing at anything with an interesting texture (i.e. any carpet) so we’re not really sure what to do…
gorgeous!
Chris still has some tees with that print!! Ha….Kate from Mad Abiut The House has a cat so might be worth asking her about her runner? xx
Another thing I’d recommend considering if putting wool carpet in an old house (Victorian/Edwardian etc) is to buy one that has been treated to be moth proof! We are currently taking up wool carpets which are home to moth eggs and larvae (eurgh!) especially in the stair treads, and despite repeated treatments. I’m going for a mothproofed wool blend in its place to try to finally beat them…. fingers crossed.
Oh yes, great tip – hope ours is !!
Love this runner, it really adds something extra to a hallway that was beautiful to start with! I can see why the hall was one of the things that sold the house to you.
It was certainly the right thing sticking to your guns about how wide the carpet was on the individual steps, for me it’s more about the width gaps, rather than the width of the carpet, if that makes sense.
I love seeing how your home is coming together, the rooms are individual, but with a unifying style.
Yes, I feel the same – the width gaps are the thing actually holding the stairs together for me! Too much being seen looks weird! xx
This looks absolutely beautiful, you were completely right not to compromise on what you knew you wanted!
I’d love to have a stair runner, it wouldn’t work in the house I’m currently in but it’s something I’ll want when I move to my forever home 🙂
Gorgeous style.
Our hall/stairs are next in the list in our house, so this is very timely, thank you! Yours looks gorgeous.
Sadly I don’t (yet) have a staircase to cover, but just wanted to say how GORGEOUS your hall looks! I know how much work you’ve all put in, and it has 100% paid off!
Briony xx
Emma, don’t get a textured or patterened carpet if your cat is a scratcher it WILL get ruined
I have two cats who both love scratching everything, we had a textured carpet which they scratched and basically unpicked leaving frayed ends everywhere which you can’t really do much about on a textured carpet. Then we had a patterned carpet which again they scratched and after a while the stripes looked wonkey where they had pulled so much of the carpet out.
Now we have a mid grey medium length plain boring carpet. It’s not what we wanted but looks the best after multiple cat attacks.
FYI we also tried a variety of methods to stop the scratching but they didn’t work becuase neither cat will be intimidated by anything. I roll my eyes and surrender my home to their scratches
All this to think about with cats! I’m allergic to fur so will never know so this is useful! xx
This looks incredible!
Any chance you can share with us what they tape cost in the end?
How did the installer add it to existing carpeting? Was it just stapled?
So I think the taping cost around £800 (this is included in the final price) but obvously every area is a different size, I think they stitch it together and it was brought to us and laid at ours with glue x
i never knew stair runners could be so difficult! yours looks so bloomin’ amazing, definitely worth you pursuing for the striped edging!
Laura x
Hi, your hall looks beautiful. Could you tell me the colour of the Pampas Nordic runner please?
Pampas boucle 1810 x
Please, please don’t feel bad about missing out on a Roger Oates striped runner, you dodged a bullet. Ours admittedly looked beautiful for a little while. About 3 years max. Rubber soles are its worst enemy and they wreak havoc on the fibres on the turns in the stairs and on the bottom steps. Mostly because the weave is so open and the rubber soles stick to the carpet when the foot swivels. So the wool fibres eventually tear. By year 5 our bottom set of stairs (which had the most curved steps and the most people walking on them between kitchen and sitting room) looked so bad that I contacted R.O. about recovering the 3 steps in the turn. No way they said, you have to have the entire stair redone because of the curve. I then had someone come out who fitted Roger Oates and was willing to just do a few steps, not the entire set of stairs. They quoted more than £400 for recovering the three steps. Ouch! Luckily I had some remnants from the original fitting and ended up nailing those pieces down over the worst of the steps. It was a pretty amateur job though.
Oh no, I am so sorry to hear this!! xx
Alex I am delighted to see that you have gone for a runner on the landing. I thought I was the only one who thought this was a good idea as I have never seen it in anyone else’s home and the carpet shops I consulted all looked at me as if I was crazy when I asked about it! Having now seen it ‘in the flesh’ I will definitely be holding firm and going for it. And that taping is spot on too.
Yes, it can be a trip hazard I suppose, and it has its issues with which rooms it runs into with a threshhold but it has worked here, and we love it x
I’m so glad I came across your blog. Your stairs and landing are just beautiful! Like you, we had been looking at Roger Oates runners for the stairs and landing of our house, but with three T-junctions on the landing we had reluctantly decided that the result would be too messy. The cost was also a consideration! Your solution, using striped taping, is such a good idea. I hadn’t realised that striped tape existed – our local carpet shop never suggested it. We also love the Kersaint Cobb carpet you chose; from the photos it looks as if it would go well with our stripped-pine hall floor. Are you able to tell us the product numbers/codes of the of the taping and carpet that you used? We’d like to get some samples of these. Many thanks. :o)
I think I have referenced the name of the carpet in the copy – pampas boucle….and if you call Hugher Ground they can let you know which taping it is 🙂 x
Many thanks Alex. I was actually asking about the colour code of the carpet, but I didn’t phrase my question well. I’ve now seen that you’ve said in a reply to a previous post what the product colour is (boucle 1810). Sorry that I missed that. I’ll contact Higher Ground about the tape.
You might like to know that several carpet websites I’ve looked at say that that the Pampas boucle carpet is moth-resistant, so the moths will just have to go somewhere else to breed. ;o)
Oh brilliant!
Hi Alex,
Your hallway looks AMAZING – great to see your beautiful period property with it’s soul restored. Glad to have played a small part in helping!
All the best – Highergroundinteriors
Hi, thanks for the great post. Do you have underlay on the landing? And is it glued or tacked down? I’m doing something similar but the carpet shop and fitter are disagreeing about whether underlay should go all the way to the edge and risk being seen slightly at the edges or just as far as the taping but I’m worried that’s an extra trip hazard. I said I’d do some research and tell them what I want when they come back with the taped runner! X
Yes we have underlay on the landing and it’s glued…the guy in the shop said they don’t do runners on landings because of trip hazards usually, but we had it in our last flat and it was fine. And I fell down my stairs a few weeks ago and it was nothing to do with the stair runner! xx
Hi Alex,
Really love your stair runner. It’s been one year now that Im trying to do the same here in Switzerland… but its just impossible to find someone that do this kind of work. My stairs are just like yours, with some steps bigger than others, so very difficult to do it by myself. Do you have any other photos with al the process? I would like to know how do you bind the tape, before, or after to put the carpet? How it’s done? I will be very grateful if you could send me a private email.
Warm regards,
Katia
Looks absolutely stunning well done. We did have a stripy carpet put on our last stairs & absolutely loved it. It was quite high wool content and so did the clothes moths! An absolute nightmare and I never completely got rid of them…