Finally stopped fighting with stair patterns after 12 years

I used to just line up the seams on stairs and hope the pattern matched close enough. Always ended up with a little shift that bugged me. Then I saw a guy at a job site in Nashville mark his backing paper before cutting. Tried it on a split-level job last month and the pattern matched perfectly across all 13 treads. Has anyone else found a weird trick that made stair work go smoother?

3 comments

3 Comments

evan_jenkins2mo ago

Man I used to think the backing paper thing was pointless extra work. Had a few jobs where I figured I was saving time by just cutting and hoping. But then I tried it on a set of stairs with a busy floral pattern. Lined up the paper marks on the first tread and it carried through the whole way down. Felt stupid for not trying it sooner. Now I don't even bother starting a stair run without marking the paper first.

jesse_craig262mo ago

Hang on, you cut the paper before you even measure?

noranguyen2mo ago

Wait no, you always cut the backing paper first before measuring.