Pulled up some of the frickin' carpet

[Tab]

What a thankless job. :eyesroll:

The dogs have thoroughly trashed the upper hallway, but that's secondary to the stairs and the landing. I thought I'd rip up the landing (it's been peed on, pooped on, and scratched down to the plywood) in that it can't be any worse than it is. To my credit, I decided to do just the landing and not the whole stairs, to make sure I wasn't getting into anything too much.

Carpet removal sucks.

I spent the day at it, have most of it done, then I intend to paint and polyurethane the landing. If all goes well, I'll do the stairs. But man, what a PITA. I had to by a special scraper/chisel, find my needlenose pliars, pull up goodness knows how many staples, etc. etc.

Is there a simple way to spruce up stairs? Most of what I've found involves buying custom risers and treads, cutting them down, and who knows what else, and it sounds like a job best left to professionals. I don't mind taking a crack at it, but I also work, so I can't spend forever screwing around with my staircase.

- t