Step by Step

English people (forgive me my use of the term "English" as a synonym for all British people) love carpet. No surprise really after having seen their taste in gigantic sofas or weirdly decorated windows...
Stairs here, no matter how steep or tiny or new they are (and everyone who has spend time on the island knows that they almost ever belong in the steep category), they are covered in carpet all the way around. No hope of getting a glimpse of what might be underneath.
I like wooden stairs but always get told that the wood underneath is too worn and ugly to be stripped bare. There goes my vision of wooden stairs with colourful vintage tiles underneath (as seen in some magazines and an "Urban Outfitters" store). I think carpet stairs are a bit strange. You walk a lot on them so you basically cover one of the most dirt sensitive areas of the house with something that gets dirty. And I have problems running down fluffy stairs...but that´s just German me ;-) Unless our cat uses the carpet even more to sharpen his claws, I think we are stuck with the fluffines for quite a while now...

how they should look...a non-fluff-zone

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