chris8796, thanks for posting that information. My problem is that I have all wood in the main level and the stairs are all oak so there wouldn't be anything added to the treads, but the problem comes in at the top of the steps as you would now step onto new wood floors so the drop between the second floor hall to the first step would be too high. Then the drop from the last step on the main level is too short. I then have a similar problem with the stairs going from the wood floor main level down to the daylight finished basement - again all oak stair case in which the drop from the main floor to the first downstairs step would be too great. Also I'm having the basement flooring changed to engineered wood and the would cause a problem in the last step as you stepped on to the basement floor. It was just easier to keep carpeting. I wish I knew when I was building the house that I wanted all wood stairs and floors, then I wouldn't have this problem now. I also wish I'd realized that they were using all oak - when I had asked for all maple he told me that since we were covering it with carpet not to worry. The other thing is the people doing my floors insist that if I did all wood floors that I had to have at least carpet or safety treads added - not a look I wanted.

I try to go as wide a tread and low a riser as possible, but it is all dependent on where they are located and how much room. The wider the tread, the more run you have taking up space. 16-1/2 inch wide treads would be extremely comfortable if you have the room, imo. The widest i've done is 14-1/2" and it was fine.

I just installed recessed LED and lighted post caps from De-kor. Overall I put in 10 post caps and 24 lights. They are quite nice and a little tedious to wire up and can get pricey. There are a few pics over at contractortalk.com. Run a search on De-kor and check out the portfolio of Greg Di on piccassaweb. I wanted LEDs for the low energy use and long life. Overall, I'm very happy with them. Installation was tedious since the wire is 22g and hard to strip without breaking it. There are no installation clips, just loose wires so there is a lot of use of wire nuts. Since they were going under the deck boards, I soldered the wires before putting the outdoor silicone filled wire nuts on.

what would be a reason to rip pieces of oak and glue vs. use one solid piece? I can think of a couple: - ability to find stock in the proper width (at all or without a lot of waste) - less chance of warping. I'm not a builder, but the wood I buy is random length and width. If you can find dimension stock, it will have less waste but higher cost.