We did this last winter, removed the carpet and replaced the pine treads with oak. Looks lovely, but I will offer one caution: it is SLIPPERY. If you have kids and/or pets, be prepared for someone to come crashing down. We haven't fallen, but our poor dog slid down the steps for many weeks. She was used to the carpet, and did an absolute cartoon rump-over-teakettle fall every time she went down. She finally figured it out, and was never injured, but we felt terrible. I am also extremely careful when carrying anything, it would be very easy to slip. And your steps look especially steep. If you like the look of just the bottom step, maybe you could leave the carpet. Also, ask around and see if there is a woodworker in your area who could make the step. Ours are not as contoured as the one in the picture, but my DH does woodworking, and made all of our treads, because the purchased ones were so expensive. Perhaps you could come out cheaper that way.

ok, this is an area where I actually know something! I sold and spec'ed hardwood for a custom shop before my mommy-life. The information you are getting here is correct. Engineered floors will give you 1-2 refinishings ON A PERFECT SUBFLOOR. One of the issues that sometimes arises if there are inconsistanies in the height of your subfloor. Because there is thinner wood wearlayer (before you get to the engineered wood) there is the chance that you can damage the floor irreparably when you sand it. Now I only saw this saw this happen twice, once on a loft job and once in an older home. The loft was more subtle as it was over concrete, the old house more obvious as they were DIYers and picked engineered flooring to try to negate their irregular subfloor (they neglected to tell us that that was why they chose engineered, we would have talked them out of it had we seen the floor first) Neither of their claims to the manufacturer were fully settled because both times they did not follow the guidelines for floor prep. The loft job was also a materials only job for us with their GC laying the floors but he insisted he knew what he was doing. A good engineered floor will not be cheaper than most of your nail down options because the production costs are higher. Now having said that, GOOD engineered floors certainly have their place in places where you can't put traditional hardwood due to height restrictions or concrete subfloors. My boss had a great engineered floor in his basement and it survived a flood remarkably well (it was ash, Kahrs brand out of Scandinavia and one of the beefier engineered floors and one of the pioneers) My Grandmother also had a Kahrs floor in her ground suite condo and she LOVED it and I was impressed by the milling. I'm considering it for our basement because it's warmer and less echo-y than laminate There has been a lot of 2nd rate engineered flooring coming out of China and being labeled for all sorts of different companies. You should be able to tell an engineered sample because the layers are sandwiched together and the tongue will be a different wood than the top (showing) layer. Distressed finishes are usually more expensive because of the extra step in manufacturing to make it distressed. That is different than just getting a lower grade of hardwood like a rustic or tavern grade (in solid hardwood). Those grades have more character but they often don't carry a warranty and generally have a higher waste percentage. Another thing to think about---if you ever have to replace part of the floor, you will always be able to replicate 3/4" thick hardwood but engineered floors are more like tile, they change and get discontinued over the years. You could go pre-finished, save the hassle of site finishing but with the thicker wear-layer a 3/4" nail down floor offers. Only you will know if you can handle beveling or not. The changes in milling the last 10 years are huge. The bevel in your better milled wood is tiny. I like Canadian mills, Model or Mirage for pre-finished. Remember that if you ever re-finish, the bevel will disappear and you will, essentially have a site finished floor. One benefit that many people don't know about? With a prefinished tongue and grooved floor you can have a good installer cut out a single board (or more) from your floor if it gets damaged which is why we did a fair bit of pre-finished in new homes since inevitably we would get call-backs at move in to repair trade damage (@#$%^ plumbers and their big wrenches!). Prefinished hardwood deals the best with shinkage and expansion issues because the finish is on individual boards. Site finished floors are more labor intensive but the materials are cheaper (apples to apples). They are what many people consider the gold standard however there are more steps and you don't always know how it's going to look until it's done. There is more chance of finish contamination and trade damage during the rest of the building process. We refinished 100 year old floors. I loved the idea that there wasn't 4 generations of carpet and crap in the landfill. Definitely a forever floor and it can usually be re-sanded for all but the very worst water damage (think entire house under water for a few days) If you are going with a wide plank, keep in mind your species and humidity level (and your ability to keep humidity stable). The wider the plank (with 3/4" thick flooring), the more obvious shrinking and expanding will be. If you take a 2" wide board and it shrinks 2%, it isn't very noticeable. If you take a 6" wide board and it shrinks 2% the gaping will be more noticeable and in the case of a site finished floor *could* pull your finish apart. You'll need to find a flooring contractor in your area with lots of experience. Most of the best hardwood shops ONLY do hardwood. Beware of carpet shops and many of the big box stores in many instances. Make sure they are accredited with the NWFA (national wood flooring association) http://www.nwfa.org/member/ good luck!

Not sure if this will help, but we had our carpeted stairway converted to hardwood last year as part of our first floor remodel. Ours is open for 5 stairs at the bottom. In addition to the stairs, we had a new newel post, ballisters, and hand rail installed, some of which is cherry. The price we paid ($5,950) also included all new trim on the first floor (8 windows, 6 doorways, plus baseboards in 4 rooms).

handymac's description is an excellent one. The key to remember is that it's the top and bottom stairs that are the potential bugaboos. If they are equal to start with, then any increase/decrease in tread thickness (like his 2" --> 1 1/4") will make the top stair shorter/taller by that difference, and the bottom stair taller/shorter by that difference. (Hope I didn't totally confuse you.) So if your new material is 1/2" thicker than the old material, the top step is 1/2" less than it was and the bottom step is 1/2" more. Now they're an inch different from each other, which doesn't meet code. But if you change your flooring on the bottom floor or top floor, those will impact it as well. The other thing to keep in mind is that your stairs may or may not be constructed as handymac describes. Our carpeted stairs actually had 1x pine treads. So that's 3/4" thick + 1/2" carpet = 1 1/4" total. Swapping out to oak treads had no impact on the rise between stairs. Or your existing stairs may have a top (or bottom) stair that has more or less rise than the rest of them. So the change in tread may still keep them within the code-required tolerance. The best way to know the answer is to remove the carpet and see what you've got, and measure each riser. Listen to what he said about gaskets or rosin paper. We didn't do that on ours and chased squeaks for quite a while.