I got inspired a few weeks ago when I came across this beautiful painted stair runner. I showed it to my hubby and since we both hated the carpet on the stairs, we decided to rip it out right then and there.

 Source

The carpet on our stairs had definitley seen better days.

After years of wear and tear it was stained and dingy. It just had to go!

Pulling it up was super easy, the hard part was removing the nails and strips of wood that held the carpet down. You’ll see in the pictures, some are still there.

We discovered that one of the stair treads was cracked and even sank when you put your weight on it. So,we decided to replace it ourselves, how hard could it be, right? I did my research (watched some videos on YouTube and searched some sites).

Everything was fine and dandy until we tried to remove the step, it wouldn’t budge. Upon closer inspection we discovered why. The steps (treads) actually went into the trim on the walls. Ok, onto plan B.

We borrowed some tools from my husband’s cousin and began to plow away. Someday when I grow up, I wanna have my own tools, sigh. We just don’t have anywhere to store them, yet. Project!!

As you can see we used a couple of different tools and barely made a dent. This prehistoric wood is super thick.

We called it quits after making a larger hole and ripping out a larger piece.

We discovered two things: the only thing holding up each step is two nails (scary) which are nailed into the vertical part of each step, the steps aren’t actually secured to the sides of the wall and there is nothing in the middle supporting the stairs.

I guess that’s how they build them in the 70′s or whenever. So now we don’t know what to do. Should we bring them up to date or just fix that one step and let it be. They have lasted this long…

Well, this is what our stairs are supposed to look like (source):

This is what our stairs actually look like: $*&^!!!

Our plan is to figure out how to replace the tread ourselves or call in a pro. We’ll see what happens.