Stairs before and after LVT fitted
Have you ever wondered whether you can fit luxury vinyl tiles (LVT) to a staircase. Yes you can; but there a few things you need to watch.
Stair nosing
The apartment was in a bit of a state. It was largely carpeted, but our Italian clients preferred a hard floor. We showed them an LVT alternative which would have been very expensive to fit throughout the apartment. So, to keep down cost, we matched a Belgian laminate for all the rooms, to an LVT plank for the stairs. You can’t tell the difference. The key for a stylish finish was to find a suitable stair nosing. In the end, we selected a product in which the fitter would cut, wrap, glue and secure an LVT plank in a brass trim slot around each step.
Cutting the LVT
Our fitter had to take particular care because the stairs were well-worn in the middle through many years of use. This meant that each nosing was not completely straight. Imagine trying to wrap a perfectly square piece of paper around a slightly bent, concave tube; geometry would cause the corners of the paper to wrap tight, but the middle would be loose. So he had to cut and shape each LVT plank to suit; to roll perfectly and securely into the metal trim. He used a heat gun to soften the vinyl, making it easy to roll into shape.
Alternative nosings are available. It would have been much easier to fit solid metal trims to avoid extra work forming the vinyl plank around the nose. But they don’t look so good. We think the slim metal trim looks far more stylish. You can see how much care the fitter took cutting the vinyl perfectly to the stair and string profiles in this old building.
On our services page you can read more about different flooring materials we’ve fitted for our various projects. LVT is a great product for a room; now you can fit it to stairs too.
