So much for best laid plans.  Thanks to a sick cat spewing over the ENTIRE staircase top to bottom, Nikki and I had a quick meeting to figure out how best to deal with this mess, and the staircase IS on the renovation list...so... RENOVATIONS HAVE BEGUN!  I repeat, they have begun! This is not a drill!  Grab your emergency breathing masks!  *laughing*  At this point it's easier to just start early and toss the carpet than to clean that up, poor cat really didn't have a good night last night.  The vet thinks it's lingering damage from his starvation period, he's never been quite 'right', and while all cats are puke machines to some extent or another, this one apparently aspires to be an Olympic specialist in the sport. 

So...we did not get a pleasant surprise under the carpet, I admit I had a silly hope maybe it was nice under it, it wouldn't be the first time a homeowner removed carpet to find something pleasant underneath.  But it wasn't a horror show either, it is just a set of aging painted stairs in need of cleaning from sitting under slowly disintegrating padding.  Then probably it wouldn't hurt to trowel on some wood putty to smooth out all the nicks and tack holes from the carpet, and we can paint them so they don't look quite so bad.  The good news is that they do seem to be in decent condition, and the website I saved on how to redo them doesn't look like it will be necessary at this time, unless, of course, Nikki drives that hammer through them into the basement or something.