Come and tell me about stair runners

[mistressploppy]

I'm painting my stairs and banisters white and want a runner for them but all the nicest ones are sisal and with a cat and a 10mo (and DH and I are messy buggers) I just don't think it's practical. And they're a bit scratchy.

Any ideas for nice looking carpetty ones?

TIA

Our local carpet shop had lots and gave us good advice on what fitting would involve (we have a bend in the stairs so the fitting would have to be in two stages). They had natural materials and also some lovely carpet ones. I had my heart set on a very fine stripe but we couldn't work out how it would work with our landing.

There's good advice here.

You can pick pretty much any carpet and the shop should be able to turn it into a stair runner for you, but you have to pay for the privilege.

I wanted stair rods initially, but the man in the shop said that they were purely for decoration nowadays and unless the staircase is very wide, they are a bit bling and naff.

I love my stair carpet, it's red and stripy

at UnholyMoley's red stripy runner.

Ooh, thanks everyone. I fancy stripy but I also need a rug for the room which leads to the stairs, so I may choose that first and go from there.

Interesting about the rods...

I have a red stair runner too - it's great. Look here. Very reasonably priced.

I think you can get rugs in the same pattern.