One of my retirement DIY projects for our 1996-built home was to update the foyer. The house has a two-story foyer which is such a great architectural feature; but it was really tired and dated (like me I guess, haha). Yikes…See the before photo below. I installed wainscoting and painted the railings myself. We had a professional painter paint the two-story walls; because, in spite of the fact that you see me on a ladder painting the railings, I am afraid of heights. I could go no higher (haha). Last, we had new carpet installed on the stairs.

There are separate blog posts on the DIY wainscoting and DIY painting the railings at the links below.

The dream was to replace the stair treads with a beautiful, stained wood with white risers which looks amazing with wainscoting; but alas (no one really says that)..I couldn’t justify the money. So new carpet on the stairs was chosen instead. And….I actually ended up loving it so much!

I don’t know about you; but my mind always goes to the most expensive, most complex and most elaborate solution to almost everything when it comes to home improvement. I have found so many times that simpler and less expensive is sometimes 100% better and the way to go.

All these years, carpeted stairs provided a quiet, soft, and safe landing for our feet. It really was the best solution for our home which has such a long, sort-of steep and straight run of stairs. Over the years, carpet saved our children numerous times as both of them had a bad habit of flying up and down the stairs faster than their feet could carry them and they had no turns to slow their roll. With us being a mostly shoes-off-in-the-house family, wood stairs could be quite slippery in socks. Even with carpet, both kids have fallen backwards and forwards. The carpet kept the tumble or slide to a few steps and provided a soft landing for their bumpers, back, face, teeth, head and knees.

I believe as much as a home should look nice, it should also feel good to the touch and, above all else, be safe.

The carpet was also quiet too. Every person in our household was on a different schedule. My husband woke up extremely early and was down the stairs at 3:30a.m. The kids and I were up all hours of the night and coming to bed late. It was nice to be able to creep up and down the stairs incognito.

The carpet also provided a soft textural element contrasting with the hardwood floor at the top and bottom of the stairs.

Yes.. I know I could have put a runner down the middle and I love the look. I just couldn’t justify, for us, spending all that money, even if I DIY’d it, and all that precious time and energy, only to cover up most of it with carpet anyway.

Lastly, our hardwood floor was also going to be a challenge to coordinate with. It was Brazilian Cherry which has lots of color variation including reds which I was trying to neutralize. I was concerned about adding even more red which would have been cohesive or potentially a different wood which might look out of place.

I chose white carpet with a very, very subtle taupe strip running waterfall direction down the stairs. You can see it in the after picture. White is such a great neutralizer, cooling down those warmer tones, and it also goes well with everything. Because this was the only carpet in the entire house, and we aren’t inside shoe people, we could get away with white. I thought it looked updated and, possibly even, sophisticated with the white and black theme. The bar was pretty low. What wouldn’t look updated and sophisticated compared to our old, worn, beige carpet?

The greatest part…The job was fairly inexpensive, done in a couple of hours and I didn’t have to lift a finger. Score!