Stair Runner

[Thomarse]

Hello,

Does anyone have any ideas how I can get some carpet edged to make a cheap stair runner.. I have had a ridiculous quote from a carpet shop of =A3700 for a runner to go up my stairs and along the landing.

I was thinking along the lines of buying an end of roll quality carpet and cutting it to required width and then somehow getting it edged?

has anyone had any expereince of stair runners, what is the cheapest option?

Thanks in advance

Tom

[David Sims]

[Cicero]

=============================== Cut carpet to suit and then buy a sailmaker's needle and thread and do the edge in blanket stitch. It may take some time but it won't cost £700-00.

Google / IMAGES for some ideas.

Cic.

[James Hawkins]

If you can get the offcut, getting it ripped (edged) cost around £5/m last time I checked. I think you need to count all sides towards that total.

[Andy]

Does anyone have any ideas how I can get some carpet edged to make a cheap stair runner.. I have had a ridiculous quote from a carpet shop of £700 for a runner to go up my stairs and along the landing.

I was thinking along the lines of buying an end of roll quality carpet and cutting it to required width and then somehow getting it edged?

has anyone had any expereince of stair runners, what is the cheapest option?

Thanks in advance

Tom

Getting normal carpet edged is easy enough, I wouldn't do it by had you'll be there all week. I had it done for a stair runner I had made up from ordinary carpet, its called 'whipping', and a local carpet place did it for me on their machine. Dedicated carpet runners are stupidly expensive, unless you buy the cheap rubbish on a roll. Much cheaper to make up a runner yourself, as long as you are a confident DIYer.

Whipping is only a few pounds per metre, I don't think it cost me much over £220 to get the whole stair carpet done and that includes the carpet/underlay cost ( I cut it up and fitted it myself, including underlay ). It was end of roll wool carpet at £12/metre so it was decent stuff. I have about 12 steps, then a half-landing, then a short landing.

You select your carpet, which must be hard wearing. You also carefully measure up all the shapes of carpet you need to make up your runners etc, bearing in mind the 'lay' of the carpet must face down the stairs at all times. A typical runner is 27" wide but it depends. I used crumb rubber Duralay underlay: that's easy to fit as its out of sight and you don't need great accuracy.

You then mess around on a bit of squared paper, ( allowing a few inches spare on the measurements for trimming ) with scale cutouts of the bits of carpet you think you'll need trying to get them to fit into the width of the roll of carpet you are buying with minimum waste: remember you pay for all the carpet you waste.

This is why it is necessary to choose the carpet first, so you know the width of the roll. Once you have determined the most efficient way to cut out your required bits of carpet from the roll ( remembering to allow a little spare and the fact that the 'lay' has to be appropriate for the bits of carpet in question ) you can have 'X' yards of carpet cut off the roll.

By the way, a stair runner can be made in short segments, in fact it is probably most efficient in terms of carpet to do it that way. You can have the runner made from segemnts that cover just a single tread and riser, or several at a go, whatever suits best.

Now you need to cut out all the pieces that you need. Cut out the pieces that are to be whipped to size, but any other non-whipped edge cut with some spare. For instance, the ends of the segments that make up the runner should be cut slightly over, as you will cut them to length in situ. The cut ends get stuffed into the vertex between the riser and the tread, held by gripper rods, you won't see the ragged cut edge. The edges of the runner, being visible and needing whipping, must be cut accuarely and straight. Watch out you cut the ends at right angles to the edges, its not always easy.

Take all bits needing whipping to the carpet place of your choice, let them get on with it for a few pounds/yard.

When finished, its up to you to lay underlay and the carpet, trimming as necessary. You may need to tie the end of the whipping yarn in place where you trim through it though else it'll unravel. Or you may prefer a carpet fitter to do that. DIY runner plus landing etc will take a week or two of research and planning and cutting, plus a week or two having the edges 'whipped', plus a day or two fitting etc but it is miles cheaper than what you're being quoted, and very possible. I'm very pleased with my runner/landing carpet.

Andy.

[James Hawkins]

Andy's term is right, BTW - it's called "whipping", not "ripping". My bad...