I might as well ask about this too. Recap, installing hardwood throughout the house except for laundry room and bathrooms. DH wants to leave the entire stair area alone. I'm sure he'd be fine with it as is forever. I'd like it changed at the same time as the flooring. We're installing oak (probably red) with a medium brown stain. This area is a visual mess. At the very least I'd like to replace the railing and newel and the painted L landing base or whatever it's called to match the new floors. The handrail doesn't need to be there but DH thinks we should leave it because it's already there and 'helpful'. Well I don't want new everything else and a dark painted handrail. I'm not interested in stripping and staining it. I guess the other option could be to actually replace the handrail with a stained one. (Of course, that someone else stains to match the floors.) I just think the handrail adds one extra thing to the visual clutter. The stairs have dark painted treads to match the railing and the risers are white. We'll stay with white painted spindles. Could we replace everything I just talked about and keep the treads painted or is that just weird? Also is it an option to replace just the L landing piece to match the floor and keep the rest as is? And because someone will probably mention it or at the least, wonder... the crazy wall trim was apparently to cover drywall horror. When we had the basement finished we spoke with the drywaller about fixing this stair area and he wouldn't touch it. I'm sure there's a drywaller out there who would but we don't have plans to change it at this time. Honestly, I forgot how stupid looking it is until I take a photo. FWIW, stairs lead to finished basement.

It's not a plywood tread, if what you show in the picture is your tread. Will you be installing the bamboo on the hallway at top? If so, and the rise of the steps will be the same as the rise of the final tread and the top hallway landing, then just cutting the nosing off each southern yellow pine tread would work. You cannot take the existing treads out; they are let into the stringer and joined at the tread and riser juncture by nails from underneath. You could possibly take out the treads and put in new, but that would require further demolition and the removal of what you call your banister trim to allow for that. And, we haven't a clue how the opposite side is done. Also, doing that, and installing the bamboo on the top hallway, could screw up the rise at that top step. Check your measurements to see how your plan will affect the rise. And, think how you're going to scribe each tread to fit. Lots of ways to do that...low tech simple pattern making or high tech tread scribing tools.

Looking for advice on whether to cap stairs or use half inch engineered flooring on stairs. The engineered flooring has a thin veneer on top. It will be used as flooring throughout the rest of the house. If anyone can speak from personal experience even better.

I’m hoping that it’s not going to be too difficult to find the skill and expertise needed to prepare the treads. We’re in the greater Indianapolis area. Is this a unique enough project (preparing stair treads by matching stain and replicating hand scraped texture) that we might struggle to find someone? Quick Google searches suggest to me that many species of wood treads can be purchased online, including treads with various degrees of distressing, but I’d prefer to work more locally so we can see what we’re getting. I’m pretty sure the flooring store, which has a very good reputation locally, will be qualified to do the installation. I need to get back in touch with my contact at the flooring store for thoughts. I might also reach out the man who custom built our kitchen cabinets to see if this is the type of carpentry work he might do (he did a beautiful job on our cabinets).