After much back and forth discussion, I finally got Matt to agree to let me remove the rest of the 1981 carpet from the main staircase.  It was threadbare and worn and impossible to clean.

The cat loved it and used it for sleeping and claw sharpening on occasion.

When we took the carpet off from the top part of the landing we found that the last time the stairs were refinished, the centers did not get polyurethane applied.  When we removed the rest of the carpet the same held true.  They looked like this:

The centers that were untreated were really dry.  I thought maybe using the lemon oil I had used on all the wood work when we first moved in might help.  (All our woodwork was dry and lacked shine when we got here.)  The steps still lack a shine but they look a lot better (I think) and have some protection.

The girls have a date dance on Saturday (Dancing with the Star Wars, isn’t that a cute theme?) and youngest daughter is going with a big group consisting of most of her swim team.  One of her friends wanted to do pictures at our house because she thinks we can get all 30 plus kids on the stairs.  That was my big push to clean them up now.  They aren’t perfect and we will need to put a clear coat on them.  I still prefer the bare wood to carpet.  I think the wood is beautiful.  I am sure we can get all the kids on the stairs for a picture and having the carpet removed is a step in the right direction!