The old carpet that wasn't

The stairwell to the master bedroom is steep, creaky, and most certainly not up to code.

It's also nigh unto ugly.  Of course, it could've been worse...

...like the previous owners' carpet from the first listing of the house. The carpeting extended into the family room, the small downstairs hallway and the stairwell.  The home was on the market for 6 months in this state.  The family then ripped it out, revealing hardwood in a couple of rooms.

Really special.

For the past year, I've cursed the carpeting on the stairs because I thought it was old and dusty and I knew that it didn't allow me to shut the door in the dining room.  Since I've been getting enough Vitamin D lately (thank you, summer), making my energy levels soar, I decided that it was time to deal with that shaggy mess once and for all.  I called in the calvary.

Before.

Thankfully, Ryan was up to the task.  All I did was ask him to start pulling it up.

Once he got it all up, I asked him when it was made.

In 2011.  That awful stuff is practically brand new.  Infuriating!  I even kind of knew it was relatively new and still felt a little mad.  What made it worse is that the staples and tack strips required about two hours of labor for a space that is quite small.  There's also leftover rubber stuff that had been glued to the stairs. Who knows how old that is, although the lack of finish on the tops of the steps makes me think the rubber is original to the house.

Rubbery stuff, holes in the wall on the left.

After.  I mean, Progress.

For the rest of the house,the upside to the new carpet is that at least we're not living with animal smells or other owners' spills and such.  The downside is that the carpet will not last very long in the other spaces.  It's matted down and looks so aged, despite its relative youth.  Unfortunately, pulling it all up won't quite work because it's not hardwood underneath (it's an addition and probably has just subfloor).  So we shall have to wait for a windfall (please, if you're rich and about to die, put me in your will for posterity's sake.  Let's say you're named Amelia.  We'll name the family room floor the Amelia Memorial Hardwood Floor in your memory and a few hundred blog readers will see it and think kindly of you).

Anyway, now we have to make the stairs pretty.  We're happy that the door closes now, and I actually love that it's a bit noisier heading upstairs because it has been too easy for the kids to sneak up on us in the mornings.

We'll repair the holes and try to deal with the leftover rubbery stuff.  I'm thinking we'll paint them a light color. For now, though, I really like the rustic, needs-work look. I prefer it to the cheap carpet band-aid style that it had going before.

Your thoughts?