This should have been one of the very first projects that we should have posted back in April. We bought the house in March and hated the carpet on the steps. It was so hard to clean because of all the dogs (we had dogs over non stop that I was pet-sitting for) and cat hair. Bleahh. That hair is a pain in the butt to clean up!! Let me tell you, it is not easy to take the vacuum to the steps and try to move it all around and sweep up that pet hair. I don’t understand how the women on the vacuum boxes look so happy doing this. There is no way that either of us wanted to lug that thing up the stairs throughout the week. So as you can imagine, the steps were a little hairy. We have two black dogs. We finally had enough, so at the last minute, UP CAME THE CARPET! Here is the progress.
Pulling up the carpet was easy. I know it looks like I didn’t do a lot of work. OK, well maybe I didn’t. I took pictures and I helped pull the nails out of the stairs. So yeah, that counts!
Off comes the padding. Next we took out the nails. What a pain in the butt. Literally. I think I sat and maybe leaned on a few. OUCH! The nails were all nailed on this wooden strip that held the carpet down. I have no idea what the technical term for that thing is. Then we used a crow bar to lift that off the steps. Ok… it’s not a crow bar. It looks like one. Its a mini crow bar. ??? Well that thing left some marks in the risers. Bummer. I was hoping it wouldn’t take pieces of the wood out. That now also needs to be filled in.
Now look how pretty these are. 
We love them. They are not finished yet. Next we have to strip all of the stain off, fill in the holes and then re-stain. This might be a Summer project. Let me tell you though, the steps are sooooo much easier to clean. Oh speaking of that…. I think I need to sweep the pet hair off of them tonight.
