DIY Stair Runner

I'll acknowledge the elephant in the room first.  I've been kind of MIA here lately and I have no excuse.  I've been struggling to find a balance and have vowed to focus on putting out quality content as opposed to posting something just to post something.  So hopefully this post was worth the wait!

5 Years ago when we moved into our house, the staircase was depressing.  Dingy, uncleanable carpet and a dated, bowed railing.  No need to adjust the color on your screen- the pic is pretty true to color and the railing was orange.

Finally, this summer, we replaced the railing and refinished the treads and since then, the stairs have sat naked.

I did really like the simple beauty of the naked stairs, especially after we refinished the treads, but the condition of the 100+ year old risers and the fact that they're actually rather steep made having a runner an unfortunate necessity.  With one cat who enjoys scratching carpet on stairs, 2 things were imperative: low cost investment/DIY, and a cut pile runner that would not be as easily torn apart.  After quite a bit of searching and debating, I landed on this indoor/outdoor cut pile Safavieh rug from Target.

The other supplies that I needed to install the runner were a rug pad (I used this one from IKEA, cut to size), an electric staple gun, a hand staple gun, and a utility knife.  This project was such a long time coming!

Prior to installing, the stairs themselves needed a bit of prep.  Each riser was chewed up from 100 years of being beat on.  Trying to smooth all this out would have taken ages and probably miracles, so I only repaired what would be seen on either side of a runner.  I patched, caulked, primed and painted until they looked passable.

After a failed attempt at starting to install the runner from the top down, I decided that it might be best to start at the bottom where gravity would be working less against me.  Before installing the first piece, I cut off the stripes on the end so that the stripes would only be on the sides.

Starting the stapling at the bottom, I tried carefully to keep the runner straight.  After securing the bottom, I stapled under the lip of the tread to create a "Hollywood" style install.  All the while being supervised by one fuzzball or the other.  Daisy's in charge of quality control.

After securing it under the lip, I moved onto the top of the tread (checking the spacing from the wall as I went), and stapled along the edges onto the tread.

Then, after the tread was secure on both sides, and pressing the carpet as far into the corner as possible, I stapled onto the next riser.

And then stapled a line as close under the tread as I could get, all the way across, so that the runner sat nice and snug to the stairs.

Since the runners that I purchased were not intended for stairs and were only 7' long, I needed 5 to cover all the stairs.  Once I got toward the end of one runner I would cut it to end just under the lip of a tread so that I could hide the seam as best as possible.  Then I cut the next runner to begin where the last runner left off in the pattern.

Pro tip: never attempt to cut carpet from the pile (or top) side.  It'll be 7 times the work and 11 times the mess.  If you use a utility knife and cut from the back into just the backing, you'll avoid yarn pieces everywhere and get a nice clean cut.

When I completed one runner and started on the next, I would use my hand staple gun (since the electric wouldn't fit) to secure it to the bottom lip of the tread.  This is where I needed to be extra careful to get the pattern lined up.  The runners did vary slightly, so I needed to make sure that the pattern matched in the center first, then worked my way to the ends.

I kept working my way up the stairs until I reached the top.  I ended it like I had with the seams in between by cutting the last piece to end just under the lip of the upstairs floors.

After I finished, I went back and hammered down any staples that hadn't gone in completely and fluffed up the carpet pile around them, completely hiding them.  After several months of naked stairs, it was a change to see the runner, but I'm so pleased with the way it came out!

Unless you study them carefully, you can't see where one runner ends and another begins.

Even walking down the stairs, I don't think I could have gotten the patterns to align any better.

The view from my sofa is looking pretty sharp and for the first time in probably years, doesn't look unfinished!

Adding a pattern onto the stairs, which is open to the living room has set the ball rolling on a few changes in there.  The additional geometric was a tipping point into a bit of decor overload in the space, so I'm gearing up to simplify the living room a bit.  She's gonna be a beaut!

Build It: TV Cabinet

I'm so pleased to say that progress has been made on a project that I introduced you to a month ago!  The wall mounted TV cabinet for my office is finally all assembled and ready to be patched, sanded, and painted!  Let's chat about the whole super exciting building process today. I enlisted Handy Dad's help- when building things we're generally a pretty good team (plus he has more tools and space than I do).  Before breaking out the tools, though, I 'built' the TV cabinet in the 3d program Sketch-up so that we could really visualize how to make it happen.  The tv cabinet would have sliding panels on the front that would hide the TV when I'm in office mode and frame the tv nicely when my office turned into the den.

Over the past month, Handy Dad and I have cut out the pieces and routered a few pieces which I'll explain in a minute.  Let me first show you the breakdown of the parts.  I used 1/4" plywood for the backs and for the sliding door panels and 1x5 pre-primed pine boards for the box.

We used the table saw to create a few depths for the pieces.  The 4 outside pieces are the deepest and the inner pieces are narrower so that they can allow the door panel to slide past them with ease.

Once all the pieces were cut, Handy Dad and I used the table saw to add a groove into the top and bottom pieces for the door panels to sit and slide in.

Next we turned to what will be the back of the pieces and routered out a notch so that the back panels can be inset and the tv cabinet box can sit flush against the wall.  This needed to be done to the end pieces, the 2 middle verticals and to a section on each end of the top and bottom.  We over-routered a bit due to poor planning but that's totally patchable, so crisis averted.

You can really see the different depths of the boards in the pic below- the outside are the deepest, the vertical supports next and the horizontal shelves are cut even narrower since they will essentially be sitting on the pack panel and didn't need to be routed out for it.

Now came the fun part- assembly!  Wood glue and a nail gun are your bffs.  It was helpful for this to be a 2 person assembly, but it could be a 1 person job if you had the right clamps.  The first piece to get put on was one of the end pieces.  Putting wood glue on the joint before lining it up and nailing together.  You can see the routed notch a bit better in this pic too.

With the first end piece on, we then attached the middle vertical on that side.  Let me orient you a bit.  We're working with the cabinet face down, and since the doors will slide past the supports and shelves, they are getting inset a bit.  The clamp you see is keeping the vertical support aligned with the back of the cabinet and raised off the table by about a 1/2".  We used what will be the shelves to ensure consistent spacing, although they aren't attached yet.  Glue and nail.

Now it's starting to look like something!  Before we could attach the other end piece, we needed to slide the door panels into the groove.

Rinse and repeat with the end and the vertical support on the other side.  With both end panels and both vertical support pieces attached, it's time for the horizontal shelves.  One of us held the shelf and made sure it would be square while the other nailed it in.

The last pieces to get attached are the pack panels.  We applied a generous bead of wood glue around the inside of the routed groove and on the back of the shelf.  Before the panel got nailed in, we put it in place and wiggled it around so that it and the glue really bonded.  I'm relying on these back pieces for a lot of the support!

As I mentioned above, we got a little router-happy, though luckily nothing that couldn't be remedied with a small scrap of wood and some wood filler.

My favorite part is always the last step: standing back to admire what you just accomplished.

Peek-a-boo Handy Dad's garage!

I cannot wait to get my new tv cabinet all finished and hung on the wall!  For the next few days, this guy will be chilling out on my dining room table (the only surface in my house big enough that's not a central floor space) so that I can patch, sand, and paint it.

Hopefully by next weekend, I'll have this all set and Hubby can help me hang it.  A 6' long wall cabinet is not a one-person install job.  Are you as excited as I am to see this finally come together??

Franken-Chair Plans

Ever been so eager to start a project that you forget to take proper before pictures?  Me neither.  I would never do that...... Since reworking, rearranging my office and getting a proper desk a few months ago, I decided that this very sad vintage chair that I adopted at Brimfield several years ago was just the right piece to add some mid century pizzazz to the room.

I'm ashamed to say that I've been sitting and working in this pre cat clawed (not from my cats!), musty, old pleather chair ever since.

The seat height was a bit too low and I craved a chair on casters, so I held off on doing anything to it until I had a plan.  First step was to make sure that I wasn't sitting on a mid century gold mine.  The chair looks suspiciously like the Eero Saarenin Executive Armchair- even down to the color.  The official version of this chair is still available new for the paltry sum of $1800+.

Lucky for my franken-chair plans, mine is just a close reproduction.  Without a makers mark or tag, I had to rely on checking the dimensions against the original designer chair.  While close, a half inch shy of the designer width and thinner seat cushion told me my chair wasn't worth thousands.  It would be cool to own a vintage designer chair (that I procured for only $25), but I now have the freedom to make it the chair I want instead of the pressure to restore it originally.  Can you see my wheels turning?  I tried to think of how I could add casters and raise the seat, but no casters would work with those original legs.  I was at an impasse.

Enter trash chair.  (which was in 1 piece when I found it, but I swiftly picked it apart, whoops)

This beauty had been sitting in a neighbor's trash pile for days.  Since I'm a recovering chair-a-holic (ha recovering...), I was trying NOT to grab it even though it called to me every time I left my house and had to pass by the pile.  Finally I gave in.  At the end of a run one day I grabbed the chair and wheeled it down the street and to my yard without a plan for it.  I just knew that this cool old chair did not deserve to end up in a dumpster.  The wood part of the base was loose and the top had seen better days- much better days.  While not beyond repair, the top is certainly in the sorrier state and won't be needed for my plans.  I probably can't bring myself to get rid of the top, though, but it will be set aside and the base is getting a new life.  Because look at this beautiful base.  It's all about that base, that base...

Wow, I wasn't planning on being so verbose today.  I guess I have a lot to say about chairs.  It's a real problem folks.  Check back next week to see how I plan to make these 2 vintage gems into the perfect office chair!

Feel free to feed my chair addiction on instagram and tag your chair discoveries with #chairhoardersanonymous