Posted on: September 17, 2007
Front and Center
Your front stairway commands attention when guests enter your home. Make that first impression as beautiful and memorable as possible with these bright ideas
Create a staircase to remember with simple touches and decorative flair. Image courtesy iStockPhoto
In most homes, the front stairway is a guest’s first glimpse of the homeowner’s style. Despite its starring role, most stairs languish in a sort of design limbo, decorated as an afterthought with bland carpet and neutral walls.
The good news: Few areas of the home are so easy to improve. Since you never get a second chance to make a great first impression, sprucing up your front stairway can pay big style dividends. The Carpet and Rug Institute, located in Dalton, Ga., offers these bright ideas:
-Incorporate a stairway’s design with the rest of the home by installing a patterned or textured carpet or runner on the stairs. Select a color that is seen throughout the home to tie together several areas, unifying the interior decor.
-To create design continuity, extend broadloom carpet from an adjacent room or hallway over the stairs.
-For extra visual interest, border the stairway carpet with a complementary pattern or solid.
-When using patterned carpet for the stairs, select a design that repeats several colors or motifs seen throughout the house. Multi-colored plaids and oriental-style patterns are often good choices. Choose a bold pattern to achieve the popular European or English look.
-To help youngsters or visually impaired family members, make sure the design you choose does not make it difficult to visually distinguish stair edges.
-Choose a patterned carpet to unify upper and lower levels that have different color palettes.
-A patterned carpet or a bordered runner camouflage soil and also provide design interest for a part of the home that often has no other adornment.
-Stairways are one of the most-trafficked areas in your home, so choose the highest quality carpet you can afford. A dense carpet with a low pile height offers the best performance on stairs. Cut pile or tight loop styles may be easiest to install and perform best over time. Nylon is the most resilient type of carpet fiber, providing maximum durability.
-Carpet on stairs should always be installed over resilient cushion. For maximum durability, carpet and cushion must go around the nose of the stair to a 3/4- to one-inch radius. Carpet can be rolled under to expose wood on the sides of the stairs, or it can surround the balusters and pediments and curl over the edge of the sides of the stairs.