Stair Runners & Stair Rods – Making an Entrance

Stair runners and stair rods are a really effective way of making the hallway and entrance to your home stand out. When carpets first started to be popular, many people had stair runners held in place with stair rods.    This was because carpets only came 27 inches wide and stair rods or carpet clips were the latest way to fit carpets to stairs.  Once carpets came more than 27 inches wide and customers wanted a fully fitted carpet, runners and stair rods became less popular.  Nowadays though stair runners and stair rods are becoming popular again.

Stair Runners

Stair runners can be purchased in one of three ways:

• Buy a carpet that comes the width you need.  For this you will need a carpet that is made 1m wide or less.   Most Axminster carpets are available in one metre widths.  If this is still too wide you will need to get your carpet retailer to cut the carpet to the right width and bind the edges.
• Buy a custom made stair runner – companies like the Alternative Flooring Company will make runners in the width you want with a wide selection of edgings.  These bespoke runners usually take about three weeks to make and the company does make a surcharge for the waste material if the runner is less than 2m wide (which it is in most cases).   You can get an idea of the cost of the materials by using their make me a rug option on their website.
• Buy a normal width carpet and get your carpet fitter to get a runner made to size.  This is the best option if you are looking to get more than just the stairs done as you will have more choice of carpets and less wastage costs.  In this case your carpet fitter will cut the stair runner from a larger piece of carpet and arrange for the edges to be bound.  This gives much more flexibility if you have funny shaped stairs.

If you are thinking of having a stair runner you need to be aware that there is quite a lot of time involved for your carpet fitter.  Hall, stairs and landings always take more time to fit than larger flat areas like living rooms, but in the case of runners the fitter has to get very accurate measurements before the runner is made and then the stairs will take longer to fit.  However the results can be stunning and really make a entrance to your home.

Stair Rods

Stair rods are decorative way of fixing a stair runner to stairs.  They come in a wide range of different finishes including, wood, and various colour metal affects.  They are made to measure for your staircase.  We supply and fit new stair rods from Stairrods and Roger Oates.

There are a large number of second-hand, reclaim and vintage stair rods available on Ebay and are generally cheaper than new and may look better in a period property.  However before you buy get your carpet fitter to tell you how many rods you need and the sizes you need.   This will avoid you making a costly mistake.