I will have hardwood on my first floor and carpet on the stairs and 2nd floor. My question is: regarding the transition, is it better to carpet the stairs first and then do the hardwood (as to avoid tucking the carpet in and risk making a mistake with the distance of hardwood to the first stair) or the other way around?
Wood – Should I carpet the stairs or install hardwood flooring first
carpetflooringhardwoodhardwood-floorstairs
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I'd go ahead and pull it up and see what you've got. It sounds like it's in pretty poor shape so you're going to have to get rid of it either way.
Depending on how the carpet was installed you'll probably find tack strips that look something like like this:
You might also find staples -- I don't know if this is common but our installer used a staple gun in some troublesome spots. Most if not all of the staples will probably be pulled out when you rip out the carpet.
Before removing anything, take a look at the hardwood stair treads and make a preliminary decision about whether you think they're in good enough condition to leave exposed. If they're really rough and/or you want to recarpet, leave the tack strips in place and hammer in the staples.
If you do want to leave the stairs uncarpeted, you can just remove the tack strips, being careful not to damage the floor underneath. For minimal damage I'd recommend this type of prybar available at box stores for ~$14:
Use a hammer to tap the pointy claw end (like you would hammer a chisel) under the head of each nail holding the tack strip down, then pry up the nail enough that you can get your hammer's claw under it to pull it out. No tools ever need touch your stair tread.
I have a similar situation and I know that you are saying the spindles are attached to the floor. I would get some hardwood and cut out like the tooth pattern around the spindles - this will give you a clean edge to line up on. Remember to make a template of the exact space, then cut out on your wood and slip in. Allow the complete depth of the spindle on the one piece of wood - then you just have to put a straight strip up against it. In my case, to take down 60 some spindles is not an option. I will be using 6 to 8 foot length to cut these out in. I am using heavy brown paper as my template or light cardboard (Bristol).
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Best Answer
Generally carpet is self edging,while hardwood floors are not (they usually gap from the wall a bit and call for a molding over the edge).
Install the floor and leave the gap at the first riser, without a molding, and bring the carpet down the riser and blind edge it. You can easily undo it in the future. This would allow you to replace the carpet, as Tester101 says, or to shift back to no carpet. Just add molding.