Carpeted Staircase?

8 years ago

My husband and I put a deposit down on a new townhome that’s currently being built. When choosing the flooring with the design center, we chose a laminate downstairs and we wanted to continue the laminate upstairs, but they wanted to charge us $8,000 for the staircase. We are thinking of doing the laminate downstairs and into the staircase landing, then we were thinking of doing a carpeted staircase, and then continue the laminate in the upstairs hallways. We are going to use the same carpet in the bedrooms as well. Is this going to look strange? I’ve attached photos of the model unit’s staircase for a point of reference.

Featured Answer

Angel 18432

8 years ago

For $8K i`m thinking you should be able to get real wood stairs - not builders stairs with laminate on top. You need to investigate further.

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Comments (11)

Lauren Kay
Original Author
8 years ago
I basically want to know if it’s a design faux pas to have laminate downstairs, a carpeted staircase, and then having the laminate in the upstairs hallway.
Elizabeth Forrest Lambert
8 years ago
I wouldn’t carpet it. I think it looks fine, but you could play with paint/stain to increase or decrease the contrast to make the difference more or less noticeable.
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Laura Hill
8 years ago
Not a pro... But if you are planning on living here for more than a short time, and if you can afford the extra $8000, you might be really disappointed with the look of carpet and it will be harder to match in a future retro-fit.
Lauren Kay
Original Author
8 years ago
Maybe we’ll get a quote to add the flooring after we move in. We don’t want to add any more to the overall value of the home, which would also increase our property taxes, etc.
tedbixby1981
8 years ago
Stairs are very labor intense so that is probably the reason for the $$$ for this area.

Let's approach this from a different angle. I'm assuming that you will have a mortgage? Look at how much more will $8K cost you in your monthly payments. A Starbucks coffee? Now let's look at carpet vs laminate. Carpet will be less expensive up front but it will require professional cleaning at least once a yr and if you live in this house for awhile you will be needing to replace the carpet. Thus, how much more are you actually spending for the laminate down the road? For resale the laminate will be looked on more favorably as it bridges the two spaces better. Now if you were going to put carpet on the lower level, we'd be having a different conversation. That said, the carpet won't look horrible but in the long run you may have wished you spent the dollars up front for the laminate.

Congrats on your new home.
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LampsUSA.com
8 years ago
I agree with Ted as we makes some very good points. If you like the look of the laminate on the stairs-then go with it.
Lauren Kay
Original Author
8 years ago
The additional $8k is out of our budget right now and we just don’t feel like it makes sense to add it in with the builder. As long as it’s not a design faux pas, then I’m good with it! We may add the laminate stairs down the road.
yvonnecmartin
8 years ago
Buy the laminate for the future right now as laminate styles aren't stocked for very long. It is also good policy to have an extra box in case there is an accident the requires replacing some of the laminate.
BCL
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago

Agree, purchase extra laminate and store it to do your stairs later. I finally pulled the carpet on my stairs and had it replaced with engineered wood. I was VERY LUCKY to find wood to match as the styles change quite often. I had someone install the wood stairs for much less than $8K, and it was 2 flights of stairs and 2 landings.
larkspurproject
8 years ago
Agree with the comments above. Purchase matching laminate and install on your own. Every home we've lived in came with carpeted stairs and we've pulled it up. Carpeted stairs are dirt magnets. Good luck and congrats on your new home-