Hardwood Flooring On Stairs

Dover Flooring Blog

November 17th, 2014

Solid Wood Treads or Wood Flooring on Stairs?

We are currently working on a large solid hardwood job and we will be replacing the carpet on the steps with hardwood. There are a few ways to do this but the main two ways of turning your stairs into a hardwood staircase is to install solid wood treads or install hardwood flooring on the steps.

What's the best way? It depends on what type of steps you currently have, the overall look desired and the construction of the stair itself.

The staircase in question is an open ended stairwell where both of the step ends are open and do not have a stringer (the stringer is the side of the stairwell that each individual step ends at. Only enclosed stairwells will have stringers). These steps currently have a railing with spindles that are attached at the edges of the step. In this case, 7 steps have both sides open ended and 7 more steps that butt up to a stringer on one side and are open ended on the other side.

Now normally the best way to turn these carpeted steps into a wood stairway would be to disassemble the hand railing, remove the carpet and install solid wood treads (removing and replacing the current tread is a job for a finish carpenter). Then you would need to sand down, stain and finish the treads with an oil base or water based finish. You can also install a wood riser to be stained or painted depending on your preference.

The second option is used when you are installing a new hardwood floor in other rooms of the house that lead up to the stairs. If you are purchasing a pre-finished hardwood floor and you want the stairs to match, then 1 good option would be to install the pre-finished hardwood flooring on the stairs also.

With enclosed steps this is no big deal. We do it all the time. On an opened ended staircase then the best method becomes more murky.

To install pre-finished hardwood flooring on an open ended stair case, you will have to frame each step with a stair nose. Then install the pre-finished hard wood flooring within that frame. You will cut off the overhang on the current tread. Your new stair noses will become the new overhang. Your riser can be covered with the hardwood flooring also or you can install birch plywood to be painted.

This method will insure that your flooring is an exact match with your stairs. Also, not to be overlooked is the importance of the finish itself also matching. With the job we are working on right now, the hardwood flooring finish is Mohawk's Armor Max which is an extremely hard finish with a 50 year finish warranty. Nothing compares to the wearability of this finish. So if we were to put solid hardwood treads on the stairs and sand, stain and finish them with the best on site finishing products available there would be a huge performance difference between the two floorings.

To sum up; the best method for creating a hardwood staircase is probably using solid wood stair treads but in certain circumstances that will not be the case. Color match and finish match are two very important considerations. So in our example, installing a pre-finished hardwood flooring product onto the existing stairs is the better choice.