Anyone gone from full stair carpet to runner? How much cost/hassle?

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We need to recarpet our stairs and I'm tempted by a runner.

However, the current carpet goes all the way across so I assume the stairs underneath are still in their original Victorian state. So if we wanted a runner, we'd have to get the side bits sanded and painted white.

Has anyone done this? How much work was it and who did you get to do it (I guess a decorator?) We want to get the recarpeting done before new baby arrives (6 weeks time...) so might just go for full width if it's going to be a huge job.

Also, do the painted side bits get very dusty/dirty and need loads of cleaning to look ok...?

I can't help with some of your questions as it's not work I've had done to my house.

But, I lived in a house with a runner on stairs that were painted cream. I found vacuuming the stairs a pita. The white bits either side of the carpet would show dust a couple of days after vacuuming. And the standard wide attachment on the vacuum obviously was no good on the non-carpeted bits down the side, but using the small attachments meant that it took a few sweeps of the vacuum on each little bit of stair.

Having said all that, if you just have natural looking wood (rather than painting a pale colour) all of the above won't be such a problem.

I do think runners look lovely when they're in houses with people who keep a very clean house looking after things!

hmm thanks! I wondered if that might be the case.

We would definitely have to paint the side bits white rather than having natural wood, because all the banisters (?sp) are in white, also I'm not sure natural wood would look right in the victorian house...

So that means quite a big cleaning commitment from what you're saying, especially with a toddler and another one on the way (and we're not a shoes off type house).

Oh God,we had that in our old house and it is a PITA alright.I do think it looks lovely but Delphine is correct....the dust gathers immediately on either side of the carpet and is very noticeable.In a nutshell...very high maintenance.

Yes - very noticeable, especially if you have a black dog!
Having said that I love ours, regardless of the muck. Am tempted by a cheap hand vac just to keep on top of it easily.

Was easy to sort - ripped up old carpet and removed grippers, but kept hold of them. Sanded and painted the stairs, bought runner off eBay for £60 (it's multicoloured stripes) dp fitted it in about an hour by cutting down to size the old grippers, and stapling it in place :)

Did this but never installed the runner. Didn't realise at the time that the cost of the runner plus the brass widgets that keep them in place would cost a small fortune so canned the idea.

Most runners (unless bespoke) come in standard widths so runners to fit our narrow staircase were too wide. I think it would have left about an inch on either side.

Two things - where the carpet grippers have been, there will be tons of small tack holes in the steps and stair backs which all have to be filled, painted and sealed
When we took off our carpet, lots of the steps had broken mouldings underneath or worse still cracked split treads. We filled them and did all the gubbins to make it look nice but obviously it's a high use area and they didn't last long even with about 15 coats of clear varnish. DH's heavy work shoes scraped the paint off the back of the stairbacks too which was a total pain.

Stair sanding fills the house with dust and you need to use a handheld sander so it's fairly slow work. Baby on the way and a toddler so possibility of lead paint on an old stairs too which you shouldn't ignore.

I wouldn't personally bother unless you have a lovely Edwardian style sweeping staircase with the width to make it look nice. If yours is the straight up narrow London Victorian terrace job it's marginally more hassle than it's worth.

I think they can look fab though so can completely understand why you'd want to do it.

Thanks everyone! Looks like it would cost at least double to do runner rather than full width (due to decorator costs and extra work for carpet fitters) and take a fair bit longer (as need decorator - we are not DIY people AT ALL).

What with that and the extra cleaning it's going to be full width, at least for the moment...