I Wish Every Home Still Had This Extremely Practical Centuries-Old Feature

I’m obsessed with historical home features — from in-wall razor disposal slots to Victorian dust corners to Dutch doors. And I love watching people renovate their homes on TikTok, too, which often leads me down interesting rabbit holes. Case in point: A TikToker going through this renovation journey shared a video of her discovering Victorian-era stair clips for the first time while remodeling her turn-of-the-century staircase — and the rare yet beautiful accessory is actually so useful if you happen to have stairs. 

Chloe Michalska of @oursevernhouse shared the unusual decorative feature while restoring their Victorian home’s staircase to its former glory. In her TikTok video, the creator showed how they removed the carpeting running down the middle of her stairs to highlight several odd brass adornments sticking out on either side of the stair risers. 

“What are those?” Michalska wondered in the video, showing how to unscrew them and painstakingly remove the white paint to reveal gorgeous brass artfully embellished clips that instantly gave the staircase a luxurious, Gilded Age feel.

While they’re not common today, Victorian stair clips became popular in the 18th-century as more middle- and upper-class homes had second and third stories, and thus, staircases. They’ve become all but extinct with modern carpet fitting methods, but they’re still used for decorative purposes in some homes to add some extra grandeur, according to RunRug.com.

Victorian stair clips served both a functional and aesthetic purpose by clipping your carpet runner in place on the sides and preventing the fabric from slipping. This also made it easy to swap out your runner whenever you wanted to wash or replace it — making it an extremely useful feature to have even in a modern home. 

There are modern Victorian stair clips that you can buy on vintage reseller sites, at estate sales, or even on Amazon, where an ornate floral-inspired brass set of clips sells for $20. However, unless your home already has these clips, you’ll need to install them yourself.

You can also take a leaf from Reese Witherspoon’s book and add stair rods to your steps to give your staircase all the grandeur of a turn-of-the-century staircase. Like stair clips, Victorian stair rods also need to be installed in the corners of your risers, but they keep your carpeting in place without ruining the wood on your steps. They run along the entire length of your step, making this a better option for less narrow staircases. 

Whether you add a pair of ornate stair clips or stair rods, once you pick out the perfect rug, you can ensure that your staircase will be a gorgeous focal point of your home.