We have been crazy busy this last week removing all the steel studs, furnace and two 50 gal water heaters from the basement to make ready for the new concrete floor so sorry I am just now getting back to here. We just finished late yesterday and we are both really sore from all that manual labor getting everything out. The company that will be putting in the concrete started at 7 a.m. this morning welding the iron that will hold the corrugated steel sheets that will hold the 4" concrete floor. When they are done with that, we will spend the next three days laying in the vapor barrier to cover the dirt and we also have to put extensions on the two sump pits. Prior to this, we had to have the OSB flooring removed and about 1 foot X 2,200 square feet of expansive soil removed, new helical piers drilled, the second sump pit installed and new perimeter trenches dug and new french drains and rock put in so this has been a horrific costly project. We have done any and all work we can do ourselves to defray costs. Thank you all for so much helpful advice...I appreciate all of it!! We did check into having tubes put into the concrete to carry heated water to heat the floors but about 80% of the floor will be carpeted and we have been told that heated floors would not be efficient with carpet. There may be some great pad to use under the carpet that provides more insulation too. There will be a tiled bath and a work/hobby room that we will put the heated mats under the tile. We may put in a high efficiency stove/fireplace in the future. I have been reading about all kinds of concrete sealers, one has tea tree oil in it which protects against mold and it seals against radon too so I think we will seal the concrete floors for an extra layer of security! We will also have this super heavy duty vapor barrier down on the soil. We live in Colorado so it can get very cold here and we also have radon issues. Back to the stair issue...I have received about 50 responses to the ad I put on Craig's List. One guy said he was experienced with stairs and it was probably a half day job and would be about $100 labor plus materials. That sounds really low but I plan to call each one back and screen them - or at least the ones who answered my ad in the way I asked them to - and the ones that look good I will have come look at the stairs and give me a bid. I realized that it doesn't make much sense to have them look at it until the concrete floor is in which will now be the second week of June.

I just called Wolf about this issue (we're debating the 5" v. 10" riser for our new dual fuel 48" range). Wolf says with the dual fuel, discoloration on the backsplash tile and grout isn't as big an issue since the heat from the oven is pushed out the front of the range, near your feet. I still think we might go with the 5" riser because our range has a double griddle, which I can easily see splattering a lot of grease and stuff.

kitchenkelly (and everyone else) should I have them maybe cut that tapered trim (I don't know what it's called) maybe in half and then do it picture frame style? I sorta need to make up my mind by tomorrow morning when they come to finish things off. I like the tapered edge, not so fat as the quarterround, so maybe that's the way to go.

Thanks for your comments and I'm sorry for the confusion in my original posting. I should have made clear that the 2nd picture above shows our staircase in the process of being remodeled. It is not the finished remodel. I'll upload some demo and "before" pictures below. I hope they'll help with some of the questions. Here is more background on this project. If anyone reads through this or looks at the photos below and still has structural concerns I would love to hear it along with any reasons for that. This is the last piece of a total townhouse remodel. The staircase has been difficult because of conflicting advice from subcontractors. As you can see in the photos below, the half walls were torn out and replaced with framing for the installation of spindles and handrails. The architect's plan is to replace the carpeting on the original steps and put false treads and risers on the new framing. Those are the black things you see in the pictures (the risers will actually be white but these are just mockups). Our carpenter did have structural concerns with the architect's plan and he backed out of finishing the project for that reason. We brought in a structural engineer. The SE said the new framing was solidly attached to the original treads. He didn't think we needed to put full-width treads under the carpeting for structural reasons. At the time I wasn't thinking about how the steps would look style wise. I was preoccupied with getting the spindles, newels and handrails I wanted. My husband wanted carpeting and I conceded. In hindsight I guess the new carpeting was put down prematurely. We're now finishing the project with a woodworker. Since we have the ok of a structural engineer and the architect confirmed the plan is to code I was hoping the issues about trim and the drywall were the last things to resolve. Thanks for your advice so far on these issues. Unfortunately we cannot start the staircase all over for style purposes only. We would start over for structural reasons if needed. Thanks in advance for wading through all this background.