First off, pls forgive my ignorance. I've been trying to research this for weeks and I'm just confusing myself further and further.
I currently have wtw carpet on the stairs going up 2 flights, and in the halls and landings (the rest of the house is hardwood). I am ripping up the carpet and replacing it with a runner throughout - a couple of inches exposed on either side.
My questions:
(1) Do i need to sand and refinish, or will screening be ok since it will be mostly covered anyway? Over-the-phone quotes have indicated that screening should be ok. However, I'm now reading that those floors may have to be refinished because the age probably means that they were previously finished with shellac (the house is 80 yrs old and i have no idea how long the carpet has been in place).
(2) One floor guy told me that there is no machine that can get in between the banister spindles, so that the space there will be a different color than the treads. Can this really be true?!? And if so, what do people do???
(3) What is a reasonable price to rip up carpeting on stairs? I live in NJ.

Thanks for any and all advice. I truly am....Clueless.

1. It really depends on how they look/if its the color they are in (wether or not they need to be sanded) It is higly possible a screen and coat would do the trick, seeing as only a few inches will be showing.

2. there are some tools that will get in between the spindles, they dont work great. Dremmels, and multimasters seem to help (but they dont match the agression of the edger that would be used on the stair treads)
It can be done, its time consuming and difficult sometimes, but a scraper and some sand paper by hand usually does it.

3. Here to remove the carpet padding, and dig all the staples out 10-15 per stair

I just refinished the stairs in my 80 year old house. Basically it goes like this: Rent a flooring edger (like $30 a day)with 80 grit to get most of the finish off-be careful and slow until you get the hand of it (you will dig in one or two times in the beginning-just from getting use to the power of the thing-but frankly, in my stairs, you don't notice the marks where it dug in unless you are 3 feet away staring)-use a paint scraper with a real sharp blade to get the corners you can't reach with the edger and use a palm sander with 60 grit to get the bullnose finish off-then use a palm sander to sand to 150 (I didn't like to use the edger cause like i said it can get away from you-but you absolutely need to use it to get the actual finish off on the treads)-then fill holes with filler (Miniwax filler is not very good as I found out)-then stain, wait a day, and 3 coats of poly (sanding lightly with 220 between coats)-I used Miniwax stain and oil poly

I actual stained and polyed every other step-then after i was done I did the same things to the other steps so I could still have access to going up and down the stairs. Tearing up the carpet, tack strips and staples is the easiest part of the job-you shouldn't be paying someone to do that!

Nick

PS- Its also a good time to stop any squeeks your stairs have. I was able to quiet my stairs down tremoundously by installing oak 3/4" quarter round where the tread and riser meet....not only does it look good but it really helps tie everything together if you don't have access to the bottom of the stairs. You use to be able to hear anyone walking on the stairs from any room in the house but now it is virtually unnoticeable.