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The method just described applies only to plain (unpatterned) carpet or carpet with a "reversible" pattern—one that can be turned around without affecting the regularity of the figure. If the pattern cannot be successfully turned end for end, then there will be some waste in the cutting.
Depending on such factors as customer preference, quality or condition of wood or other stair surface, width of stairway, type of carpet, and budgetary limitations, stairways may be carpeted either with a "margin" on either side of a center strip, or carpeted the full width of the steps. The full-width installation may be from footboard to footboard, or from the footboard to the edge of the spindles of the baluster. In either of these cases, the measuring, cutting and laying are the same as for a strip in the center.
There are the unusual installations where the customer wants the carpet cut around the spindles and tailored over the ends of the steps outside the balustrade or at both sides of an open stairway—a difficult and time-consuming job that should always be figured into the estimate before going ahead with the actual work, because the customer is going to have to pay extra for it.
DIRECTION OF PILE
When a cut-pile carpet is laid on a stairway, the pile should run down the stairs—i.e., leaning away from you as you walk down, or leaning toward you as you walk up. Carpet laid this way stands up better under the harder wear encountered on stairs.
Where the stair carpet has a pattern with a "top" to it, or where the stair carpet is the same as the carpet in the hall and has to match the pattern in the latter, then the stairway has to be laid with the pile leaning up the stairs. These are exceptions to the general rule, however. A pattern that "points" in a certain direction should point upstairs if at all possible, since we see the entire pattern only when we are facing the stairs or about to walk up. Going down, we see only the treads. In all carpet laying, pattern usually takes precedence over the lay of the pile, as mentioned on page 000.
