Stairs, carpet or wood?

[FeatherBlack]

As above! We're considering replacing the carpet on the stairs and landing with wooden stairs, but concerned it might be a bit slippy. Love the thought of wood as stairs are the only place we currently have carpet and we would like to get rid completely.
Let me know your pros and cons

Using aibu for the voting!

Yanbu - Carpet
Yabu - wood

Wood will be noisy and incredibly painful if anyone falls down them.

We have had a wooden staircase for five years now, it is fine. Easy and quick to clean.
Wear slippers and there won't be any noise going up and down.

No one has fallen down yet.

Our whole house is wood floors but my dh was paranoid about the stairs being slippery, so they have a stair carpet on them.

We went with wooden stairs and runner. We did however, make the mistake of wooden floors upstairs, with children, this was a mistake we immediately regretted as every sound is magnified 10 fold.

Wood and a runner - happy compromise?

We've had painted wood stairs (different colours risers and tops) for nearly 20 years. Don't find it slippery as we used floor paint not ordinary gloss and have soled slippers (hard floors throughout). It's a LOT easier to keep clean and as both of us have allergies to dust that's a big plus.

We've got hard floors everywhere, but are having carpet on stairs and landing. I looked at a stair runner and rods and it was a bit pricy.

Meh, only if one thunders up and down like a baby elephant. And falling hurts whatever. I really doubt carpets provide that much cushioning

We have a painted stair runner on our painted steps. It's great. Kids are older now but never had any issues with noise/falling. It's much cleaner (and cheaper) than carpet!

Speaking from experience here - wood stairs look beautiful but are sooooooo noisy!

We now have a carpeted runner (if you get what I mean? Not sure that’s the right name for it?) so it’s carpet in the middle with a generous gap at the side. They look gorge but can get really dusty. Definitely much quieter though!

Detached, Semi or terrace?

Because if it's terrace the noise will be horrific even with slippers

But if noise isn’t a concern and just being sloppy - we never had that problem

*slippy!

Trust me. Carpet makes a huge difference to the pain. I speak as someone who falls down A LOT!

Flooring contractor here..I love how carpeted stairs look in a house with wooden flooring.. both look good but a good runner on the stairs makes the staircase a feature rather than just functional
Try Kersaint Cobb/Crucial Trading /Riger Oates for carpets and runners
you can get sides bound in thread & I've done quite a few homes in Essex region ( think larger detached houses with wide steps) in carpets bound with leather/suede which looks gorgeous 😍.. good luck!

We've had all combinations over the years! We've had fully carpeted. Hard to keep looking good due to the cat and high traffic area. Then we ripped it out and went all wood. Not as easy to keep clean as, my goodness, it attracted fluff and dust like a magnet at the edges. Also, our youngest liked to stomp up the stairs so it wasn't great for our neighbours. I also nearly slipped going down the stairs a few times even though we used matte paint. Fortunately, avoided a nasty fall each time but it definitely hurt. One kid has also fallen at the bottom tread but it hurts when you catch the wooden edge on our back. We don't use slippers as we have wood downstairs and our slippers are for downstairs only (otherwise even house slippers would take the dirt upstairs).

We now have a lovely, hard wearing stair runner as a compromise!

Sorry to hear that. 😞 Wishing you future lack of falls on whatever surface...

Carpet. Wood is sooooo noisy. It also carries noise from other rooms. Before we got the carpet down the noise from my kids rooms would carry even when they weren't thundering down the stairs! At my brothers house you get the double treat of hearing his noisy stairs and the adjoining neighbours noisy stairs - yay!

Carpet on the stairs for sure.

We had the house painted and then were replacing the carpet.

There was a week of no carpet as they removed it one afternoon, to fit the next day.
Due to some issue they couldn't fit itvand we had 5/6 days of no covering, over a weekend.

The racket was horrendous.
Herd of elephant stuff.

We recently carpeted our staircases and hallways (3 storey house). We removed the old carpet before the carpet fitter came and it felt so noisy and echoed loads. We have hard floors downstairs but much prefer carpeted stairs

I slipped and fell holding the baby a million years ago when working abroad-wooden stairs. How I didn't drop her head first onto the ceramic tiles of the hallway I'll never know. Gives me nightmares, frankly. I still have a massive dent in my arse cheek where I fell onto the edge of a stair, nearly 40 years ago. Most painful thing ever, putthe baby down safely and spent ages hopping in agony.

Wood looks great but I'd never leave it for stairs.

We have wooden stairs, I love them. Two kids 4 and 9 no accidents and not noisy really! We have lots of animals so got rid of the carpet much cleaner.

Thanks for the feedback. Noise and safety are the concerns I suppose... still thinking about it

I think runner and stair rods, and make it a real feature as suggested by PP.

I slipped a couple of times on our wooden stairs, just on the last one or two, when we first moved in, and then we put grippy strips on the stairs - and I went more carefully.

Noise varies, some people are clompier than others.