The mauve (pink) carpeting has been on the stairs and two of the bedrooms on the second floor since we built the house in 1994. I never liked it from the get-go. The first floor is a lovely neutral beige. It needs to be replaced which will happen in the distant future.

See what I mean?

Granted the orangy oak wasn’t quite that pronounced at first and aged to that ugly color over the 30 years we’ve lived here.

I ran into some issues with the stain. The wood stair treads took the stain but the railing did not.

(I accidentally spilled some stain on the carpet in front of the door. Oops!)

After consulting with experts and expert-wanna-bes and messing around with this project for over a month, I finally found a solution with Minwax Polystain (not a paid review). The color is Espresso and I love it. I also decided not to stain the second flight as nobody goes up there and with the landing, it seemed like a good cutoff point. Plus it gave me less work to do.

To show off the darker treads, the risers were painted white.

The finished project with the new carpeting.

This has been on my bucket list for at least nine years! I’m very pleased with how this turned out. No more mauve carpet except for a few scrap pieces in the basement.

Got any big changes in your house?