My basement stairs are currently carpeted with a very light colored carpet. As you can imagine after several years, the carpet is badly stained and I would like to remove the carpet and cover with wood laminate or some type of tile. Is this doable for a novice?

Never a good idea to cover stair treads with a laminate or other layer of flooring. For starters, adding some thickness to each tread will now make the top step too short and the bottom step too tall - causing a trip hazard. Also, any layer needs to curl over the edge of the tread, something that is only possible with some type of tile borders. However, tile is not a good choice on stairs as it is all too easy for the day after day concentrated loads to loosen tiles.

Instead, you can:

1. Recarpet again
2. Refinish the treads that are under the carpet - depending on what they are made of you can paint or stain and seal.
3. Remove the existing treads and install new treads and risers that can take the finish you want.

we yanked and hammered off all the scuzwood treads and risers on our basement stairs, and put in oak. also put down a landing for the bottom step instead of one stair. definitely a big improvement.

however, the work showed the stringers were creepy and underbraced, and there was no solid header at the top of the staircase. fixing those deficiencies took a lot of time and labor. the alternative would have been have it collapse some day.

curious that everything above ground in our house was done quite well, but everything in the basement was a slack hack job. I think the subs' kids were doing it for their allowances.

You could remove the carpet and add something like vinyl. There are nice ones out there. You will also need to add an edge cover. You could paint or vinyl the risers as well.

I really hate the idea of having dim light and steep staircase in basement. The major cause of domestic accident are such basement.

look out on that vinyl, mosternaz... the folks flowed the no-wax vinyl on the atairs down to the back door, and thence to the basement, and I took a very nasty bump and slide on those things. any water at all, even runny noses, and you're on a greased slide.

My folks had the vinyl on the steps and landing but each step had a metal edge with ridges. Lots of wet boots, snow and water with 8 in the family and no one fell. Some of the new vinyl is textured as well. Steps are tough.