Overboarding a landing

[Mjward]

Will be over boarding 3x bedrooms with 9mm plywood as well as the landing they share which leads to the staircase. The bedrooms themselves will have engineered wood flooring laid on top of the plywood in a herringbone style. The landing however will be carpeted.

What I can't quite get my head around is how you account for carpet grippers and where the landing meets the top step.

With the carpet grippers on top of the 9mm ply, there is going to be a visible portion of the side of the plywood where the landing borders spindles/top step. I am guessing you leave a small margin (inch or less) so that the carpet can be folded over the side of the ply and stapled in place?

When it comes to the top step, my current thought is to stop the plywood short of the step itself and have another lip, but perhaps better to run the ply right to the edge of the top step and carpet over the lip that way.

Sorry if none of this makes any sense!

 

[Jameshow]

So you'll have a 18mm (9+9) step down to the stair treads?

Seems a big step. Unless your stripping out the 18mm floor boards and using 9+9mm ply and floor. In which case the floor will be very springy.

 

[rogxwhit]

stop the plywood short of the step

You don't want any unevenness in the floor surface anywhere near the top of a stair! On the other hand, if you ran the ply to the edge, you'd have increased the rise of the top step by 9mm compared to the risers beneath, where they all should be equal ...

 

[Mjward]

So you'll have a 18mm (9+9) step down to the stair treads?

Seems a big step. Unless your stripping out the 18mm floor boards and using 9+9mm ply and floor. In which case the floor will be very springy.

Possibly more... Will be 9mm ply, then 10mm underlay, then carpet thickness on top.

 

[Mjward]

You don't want any unevenness in the floor surface anywhere near the top of a stair! On the other hand, if you ran the ply to the edge, you'd have increased the rise of the top step by 9mm compared to the risers beneath, where they all should be equal ...

This is it. No obvious/easy answer to this issue.

The options I see are:

1) as above, overboard and accept there will either be a large lip or that the top step will be larger than the others

2) forget overboarding the landing, reinforce existing floorboards with screws and just carpet and accept that there will be a step up into the bedrooms

 

[Bingy man]

What about a door bar from the hard floor to the carpet - something like this from Toolstation , floors to go etc you won’t notice them after a while and look ok if if you get a similar colour to your hard floor .

 

[Bingy man]

Assuming you don’t overboard the landing . Be mindful of pipes and electrical cables

 

[Mjward]

What about a door bar from the hard floor to the carpet - something like this from Toolstation , floors to go etc you won’t notice them after a while and look ok if if you get a similar colour to your hard floor .

I think this is the most logical way forward. I will see how butchered the landing floorboards are, if they are generally ok but just need screwing in place then I'll do that. If more of an issue, will rip up the landing floorboards and lay double sheets of my 9mm ply to get it to 18mm.

Thanks all

 

[Mjward]

First bedroom boarded. Fixing the existing floorboards took a bit longer than expect, more had split than I thought. Boarding itself was relatively quick bar the detail around the fireplace

 

[Jameshow]

Supprising that your hard flooring the bedrooms and carpeting the landing I would have done the other way around?

 

[Bingy man]

First bedroom boarded. Fixing the existing floorboards took a bit longer than expect, more had split than I thought. Boarding itself was relatively quick bar the detail around the fireplace

View attachment 145332View attachment 145333View attachment 145334View attachment 145335View attachment 145336

Nice and tidy job .

 

[Mjward]

Supprising that your hard flooring the bedrooms and carpeting the landing I would have done the other way around?

It's a mix of an aesthetic perspective (we don't really like carpet, prefer hard flooring + rugs) and accoustic (the landing they share also leads to the bathroom i.e. carpet will cushion sounds for any toilet runs during the night).

Ideally would have hard flooring in the landing too but can't seem to make it work without a large lip

 

[niall Y]

Re. applying boarding to the landing, where it abuts the top tread . You could form a gradual slope down to the edge of the top tread, by chiselling some of the floor board away. This will give you a pretty flush area at the top of the stairs
It's really not advisable to alter the rise of treads, as the brain is usually on autopilot when walking up the stairs, and it's amazing how any slight discrepancy can cause a trip hazard.

 

[rogxwhit]

the brain is usually on autopilot when walking up the stairs, and it's amazing how any slight discrepancy can cause a trip hazard.

It's taking the final steps off the landing and starting to come down that are bothering me ...

 

[niall Y]

Ah yes. coming down, the first step off the landing will probably be fine, it's meeting resistance , before you expect it, on the second tread, that will be ones undoing.

Looking back at the OP's post, 9mm is not really needed under a carpet. It might be more expedient to repair the floor and then one can get away with as little as 3.2mm ply, which could easily be feathered in, against the top step Any change in levels can then be accounted for at the threshold of the bedrooms.

 

[Mjward]

Not through design but have just worked out the bedrooms (9mm ply + 5mm underlay + 13mm hardwood = 27mm) and the landing (10mm underlay + 17mm carpet = 27mm) will be the same height, which is nice, but still an issue of a lip near the top stair. I guess my options are to make it short of the stair i.e. leave top riser completely clear or bring the carpet fully over the top riser and either carpet the stairs or use a runner to mitigate riser height risks.

Unfortunately with these engineered hardwood floors you've got 2-3mm of veneer to play with i.e. not going to have much of a slope before you see things that you don't want to. I think if I could get my head around the aesthetic/safety of how it would look with a raise height wood floor next to a lower height wood step then I could look after different ply thicknesses etc but at this stage I think your points are all relevant and I've talked myself out of it. Think will secure the existing floorboards on landing, no ply underfloor and just go for thick carpet underlay and carpet on top. Most likely I'm going to have to go down the route of carpeting the stairs to avoid lip issues.

 

[Mjward]

Was going well, another bedroom and dressing room boarded with ease.

Have just cleared out the final bedroom and for fun the hearth here is not the same level as the floorboards (as is the case in the other rooms). Aside from cutting out around the hearth and leaving it on show, is there anything else that could be done here?

I'm thinking an option is to use a high grip adhesive and glue down thinner ply just over the hearth, probably 6mm, to bring it within 1mm or 2mm of the main overboarding height.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Stair rise - would it not be possible to fit decreasing thicknesses of ply to the top few steps.

Rather than have a difference in rise for the top step of (say) 15mm, it could be 3mm per tread on the first 5 treads - scarcely detectable.

 

[Mjward]

Stair rise - would it not be possible to fit decreasing thicknesses of ply to the top few steps.

Rather than have a difference in rise for the top step of (say) 15mm, it could be 3mm per tread on the first 5 treads - scarcely detectable.

Not exactly sure what you mean/now that will blend in with existing steps and in particular how their edges are treated. The stairs in question are actually only a mini stair case from a dog-leg landing off the main stair case

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There are 3 steps up to the top landing.

Assuming the extra thickness of ply + carpet on the landing was (say) 15mm, then a 4mm ply on the bottom step, 8mm on the second step and 12mm on the top step would reduce any riser difference to 4mm on all but the top step up to the landing at 3mm.

They would have no load - you could use hardboard rather than ply. Sides and back edge would be cut to fit.

Only the front edge may need finishing.

• if carpeting the stairs, simply round over the edge of the ply so carpet can be fitted as normal.
• if wood or laminate a new nosing would be needed to cover the thickness of the stair tread + ply thickness
• the only basis up with a new nosing would not be required is if you were going to retain the existing wood treads, albeit no doubt sanded and finished.