We have had experience with all wood and aluminum clad wood windows. Wood window maintenance depends heavily on the "base" coat. If the base coat is done well, maintenance is easy for the next 10 to 20 years. If the base coat is done poorly, problems will occur. For base coat coverage, we take the view of when in doubt, cover everything as long as it does not impact operation. If you buy from Marvin windows and you intend to paint them, you can order the windows with factory-applied base-coat to save you work. One then has to assume Marvin will do a good job with the base coat or take full advantage of its warranty. From then on, it is the painting that has to be done well. In general, two coats of good paint is minimal. Every year, check (visually and with fingers) the exposed surfaces and seams and cracks where water could enter for signs of water intrusion under the paint. If there is any hint of problems, don't wait, do what is necessary to fix the paint. If the first several coats of paint are done well, the annual inspection should be as easy as a good close look and finger probes. If you find any problems, and it looks like simple sanding and repaint won't work, then make the effort to sand down to first coat of good paint or down to base, do it all over again with full attention to details like that of an old world craftsman. The extra work done right is often good for 10+ years or more. Depending on brand and type and color and environmental conditions, one can expect paint to fade within five years or sooner. Whenever fading begins, it is time to repaint. The paint is not just for beauty, it is also protecting the wood underneath so we do it as soon as able. So far, our very old family house (my parents') still sport those old old wood windows. In our own home, we have Marvin aluminum clad exterior wood interior dbl-pane, Low-E II windows and doors. We are in CA and just lived through a heat wave (5/16-5/17) where our exposed hillside location got up to 120-F (hot air + reflected heat) for an hour or so on Saturday. We were basking in 105-F heat for hours each day. Our summer highs can easily reach into an average of 90-F with peaks at 105-F. The double-pane low-E II aluminum clad windows and French doors have been able to keep us comfortable. If we do not run the AC, and we can use nighttime cold air to cool the house to near 65-F by sunrise, our house heats up to 85-F by sun down. If we run our AC, the house easily maintains 75-F all day with the AC cycling on for about 30 minutes and off for an hour or so. If the night air manages to cool the house down to 60-F and it remains that way until noon, then the house interior gets no hotter than 75-F by sunset without any AC. THis is with all doors and windows closed of course. Our house also has interior doors so that we can close off sections as we exit or enter during hot days. This lessens the impact of air exchange. There is an exterior solar shade to shield windows that receive full late afternoon sun. There is an extendable awning to shield the French doors during hot afternoon suns. When it is at peak highs outside, with our exterior shades down and awning extended, our interior window wood frames is hardly warm while the interior glass pane is slightly warmer to the touch but just barely. Hope all this helps.

Here are the specific products I used... you can sign up for a Lowes card in store and get 20% off, even if you don't actually go through with the application or use the card. Unfinished pine treads with bullnose> - this looked pretty bad after 1 coat (unevenly soaked in) I thought I'd made a mistake but after 2 coats it looked great. I put in vinyl "wood" plank floors upstairs and down. It was a total of less than $1000 for the flooring for the 1500 sq ft townhouse, and I installed it all myself never having done any flooring or in fact any home reno projects before! At first I couldn't decide what to do with the stars - I definitely did not want carpet as we were putting in all hard floor everywhere else. I priced oak treads and those covertreads and everything was over $2000 as you said (not spending that when I put in the entire house flooring for half the price!). Yes if you are putting in new carpet upstairs I would do the stairs first so you can go over the top lip with the carpet rolled over for a finished look. Here's the upstairs hallway looking into the office after the floor was done but before the stairs (I had to finish the floors so we could move in, stairs were done a few weeks later while I figured out what to do with them - we walked on the yucky splintery plywood steps for a bit! Our steps were not all the same width they were wider at the top of the staircase than the bottom by about 1/2". I just took the shortest measurement of all the steps and had all the treads and risers cut to that size. I wasn't sure if I would be able to convince the Lowes people to cut different pieces to different widths let along keep track of them! As it was, their cutting had some variance anyway within 1/2" so before gluing and nailing things in place, I just tried out the individual pieces on each step and moved them around to get the widest pieces on the widest steps and vice versa. There were only small gaps at the side of some steps which you can see in this photo... I just don't mind them. If you don't like even small cracks/gaps you can fill with caulk and paint over the caulk or you can get stair trim (but that would add to the cost and the labor of cutting all the trim).

You touch it for anything other than cosmetics, then you bring it all to modern code. That is major home surgery that impacts two whole floors of your house structurally, and space wise. You would need more room for the stairs, on both floors, as modern rises and runs are bigger.

Thank you, JCF Co. I did google before posting and did watch a video of that procedure. As you can imagine, that's not something I'd want to tackle on my own having never done it before. There appears to be zero margin for error. If this was a fine piece of furniture, I would definitely consider calling a pro for the repair. But this is a floor and I'm sure it won't be the last time I drop something and create a ding. I was more looking for something along the DIY avenue that I can use from time to time. Can you recommend some sort of putty or filler? Should I then varnish over it? What about the manufacturer's wax repair ... is that something I should try?