Had a stair runner job in a 1920s house go sideways on me last month

I was working on a big old house in the historic district, trying to fit a runner on a curved staircase. The homeowner bought this expensive wool blend but didn't tell me the stairs were slightly different heights. Halfway up, my seam started to pull away because the tack strips weren't holding on the uneven wood. I had to stop, pull up about 15 feet of carpet, and hand-cut shims from some spare plywood to level out each step before re-stretching. It added almost 4 hours to the job. What's your go-to method for dealing with uneven stair treads on older homes?

3 comments

3 Comments

bennett.mason4d ago

Wow, you had to hand-cut all those shims? @felix_hayes64 is right, that's a brutal lesson.

felix_hayes644d ago

Man, that sounds like a total headache. Isn't it wild how the smallest hidden flaw in an old house can blow up a whole day's plan? It feels like a lot of modern life is just trying to make new, perfect stuff fit onto old, imperfect foundations, and it never goes smooth. My go-to is always to check for level before anything else now, because getting burned once teaches you to bring your own shim stock. That extra prep time saves you from the nightmare of redoing work later.

wells.karen4d ago

A buddy of mine had a similar mess with a Victorian place downtown. He spent a whole morning trying to get a runner to sit right on these worn, bowed treads before he gave up and pulled it all back. He ended up using a belt sander on the high spots of each step, just to take the worst of the curve off, then built up the backs with layers of roofing felt. It was a ton of extra work but he said it was the only way to get a clean stretch without the carpet buckling later.