Tara, I am not a flooring person either but was given the same info by my flooring guy. I just put down a QS oak floor which included three stairs. I think the original treads were pine. My floor guy said not to mess with it that he would stain it to match floor. Well I'm not too crazy about how it turned out. My trim Carpenter said he could cover it with oak but the floor guy said it should have been done before floor was laid. I wish now I would have just replaced them.

It would help to let folks know where you hail from. A furniture repair person would be able to melt in a colored shellac repair stick material to fix your problem. Some hardwood floor experts can do that as well. Or, an expert can repair the damage with a piece of oak shaped to fit and then colored and finished to match. Or, eopxy wood restoration paste can be applied and then shaped to gain a smooth result and then grain painted to match the wood to blend in the repair...top with finish and it's done. See?...lots of ways to do this, but you have to find someone who does this type of work or do it yourself. Forget about tread replacement...is not necessary and would just make matters worse.

Before you go cap treading its better to first understand Run and rise along with FFT. Finished floor thickness at landing and adjoining levels along with maximum nosing compliance.. Theres a lot of handymen that will gladly put you right out of code compliance while taking your money and installing topical cap treads. Your local municipality should have clear staircase compliance on their website or in office.

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).