diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index e43b0f98..cd31241c 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1 +1,3 @@
 .DS_Store
+node_modules
+.vagrant
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 705c38b6..8518f54b 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -62,5 +62,15 @@ In order to keep things simple, there will be no concept of branching in this re
 
 All releases (major and minor) of the demo repo should be made available in .zip and .tar.gz formats.
 
+### Creating dists
+
 These .zip and .tar.gz distributions can be generated using Gulp.
 
+**Prerequisites**
+
+- [node](http://nodejs.org/)
+
+**Instructions**
+
+1. npm install
+2. gulp
diff --git a/gulpfile.js b/gulpfile.js
index 8cfbdf86..18407c8f 100644
--- a/gulpfile.js
+++ b/gulpfile.js
@@ -7,8 +7,8 @@ var gulp = require('gulp'),
 
 var version = package.version;
 
-gulp.task('stage', ['clean-stage'], function(cb) {
-	return gulp.src(['**/*', '!node_modules/**'])
+gulp.task('stage', ['clean'], function(cb) {
+	return gulp.src(['**/*', '!node_modules/**', '!node_modules'])
 		.pipe(gulp.dest('stage/elasticsearch-demo-' + version));
 });
 
@@ -26,11 +26,7 @@ gulp.task('tar', [], function() {
 });
 
 gulp.task('clean', function(cb) {
-    del(['dist'], cb)
-});
-
-gulp.task('clean-stage', function(cb) {
-    del(['stage'], cb)
+    del(['dist', 'stage'], cb)
 });
 
 gulp.task('default', ['clean', 'stage'], function() {