Despite the fact that staircases are the trickiest part of a house to carpet, it is still quite rare to see homes with completely bare stairs. If you think about it, even the most luxurious properties with the finest oak fixtures nearly always have some kind of soft material in this space. One of main reasons is, unsurprisingly, safety; carpets significantly reduce the risk of slips and falls.
Yet, this is not the only reason. If you lay carpet on stairs, it protects the floorboards beneath. Or, if your stairs have a stone or cement foundation, they add much needed warmth and impact relief. This is not to mention how stylish and elegant a carefully designed staircase carpet can look. To find out for yourself, invest in top quality carpets in Stowmarket and watch as they transform your home.
This guide to carpeting staircases should help you to decide whether a full or partial product is best for your space.
A Question of Safety
Whilst it is certainly not impossible for a home to contain bare stairs and not see a great deal of nasty falls, if you have young children, they are a bad idea. The problem with bare wood on stairs is that people tend to ascend or descend pretty quickly and the lack of grip causes them to lose their footing. If you want to guarantee safety, you can either lay a soft pile carpet across the whole staircase or add ‘accent’ spots in the middle of individual steps.
Making Your Stairs Shine
A lot of homeowners worry about carpeting on stairs looking untidy, due to the awkward nature of the space. If you work with a reliable provider and installer, however, and invest in high quality carpets in Stowmarket, this should never be a problem. With a skilled installation, the backing of the carpet will not show when wrapped around the stairs. Plus, care will be taken to ensure that the carpet pile is running in the correct direction. It is vital that the pile runs from top to bottom (and not side to side), because the fibres must all respond to wear and tear in the same way.
Understanding Installation
You might not know this, but there are two main methods of installing carpeting on a staircase and they each have a special name; waterfall or French cap. Whilst the former involves bending the material over the edge of the stair and then bringing it down to meet the tread of the next, the French cap method wraps the material around the edge of the stair. Generally, the French cap approach offers a higher quality installation, but if performed correctly, both options can produce beautiful results.
Opting for Toughness
When shopping for staircase carpets in Stowmarket, it makes sense to opt for the toughest material that you can find; whilst also making compromises for appearance and aesthetic quality, of course. This is a high traffic area and most carpet insurers simply refuse to cover staircases, precisely because domestic wear and tear is unavoidable and at an accelerated rate too. The reality is that staircase carpeting always wears faster than furnishing in other rooms, so it is entirely up to you whether longevity trumps quality or vice versa.