Of all the requests that arrive with a new floor, this is one of the most common. The main level is getting hardwood or luxury vinyl plank, and the carpeted staircase in the middle of it suddenly looks like it belongs to a different house. Can the carpet come off the stairs too?
It is a good instinct and it usually produces the best-looking result. It is also a finish carpentry job rather than a flooring job, and the carpet coming off is where the real planning starts rather than where it ends.
Start by looking under the carpet
Before pricing anything, lift the carpet at the bottom step or at the back of a tread where it will not show. What you find decides which of the options below is even available.
- Construction-grade treads, often pine, plywood or particleboard, with a rounded nose built to be carpeted. This is what most carpeted stairs in newer homes have, and none of it was ever meant to be seen.
- Hardwood treads that were carpeted later. More likely in older housing, and worth checking carefully before assuming they are usable.
- Treads that were once finished, then painted, then carpeted. Common in houses that have been updated more than once.
Look at what the carpet was hiding, too: tack strip nail holes along every tread, staples in every tread and riser, and on older stairs, gaps and cracks the pad was covering.
In the pre-war neighborhoods of La Crosse and Winona, original wood under later carpet is a real possibility on floors, and it is worth checking the stairs as well before replacing anything. Our La Crosse page describes that housing stock.
Option one: refinish what is there
If the treads are genuine hardwood in reasonable condition, they can be stripped of staples, filled, sanded and finished like a floor. It is the least material and it keeps the original stair.
Two cautions. Stair treads are sanded largely by hand and with small machines, because a floor sander cannot work a nose or reach into the corner against the skirt board, so a refinished staircase is more labor per square foot than the floor at the top of it. And tack strip leaves a line of nail holes along the back of every tread, which fill but rarely disappear under a clear or light finish. A darker stain, or a runner, hides them better.
If an older stair has paint on it that could contain lead, it gets tested before anyone sands it. Our guide to paint sheen, primer and coats explains why.
Option two: retrofit treads over the old ones
Where the existing treads are construction grade, the most common approach is a retrofit. The rounded nose of each old tread is cut flush with the riser below, and a new hardwood tread, thinner than a full structural tread, is glued and fastened over the top with a nose of its own. A new riser face goes over the old riser.
Retrofit treads avoid taking the staircase apart, which matters when the stair is enclosed by drywall on both sides, when a railing is attached to it, or when it is the only way upstairs. They are also where most of the precision in this job lives, because every cut is made on a structure that was never built to close tolerances.
Option three: replace the treads and risers
Full replacement removes the old treads and risers down to the stringers and installs new full-thickness hardwood. It is the most thorough answer and the most disruptive. The stair is out of use while it is done, and the work can involve the skirt boards, the balusters where they sit in the treads, and the drywall along the edges.
It makes sense when the existing treads are damaged, when the stair squeaks badly enough that it needs opening up anyway, or when an open staircase is getting new balusters and a new handrail at the same time.
The riser height problem, which matters most
People notice treads. What they trip on is risers.
The height of each step is what your body learns on the first two steps and then assumes for the rest of the flight. Residential building codes limit how much riser heights may vary within a single flight, and the allowance is a fraction of an inch: under the model residential code most US jurisdictions build from, the tallest riser may be no more than 3/8 inch taller than the shortest.
Adding a retrofit tread to every step raises every step by the same amount, so the middle of the flight stays consistent. The top and the bottom do not. The bottom step gets taller by the thickness of the new tread, unless the floor at the bottom is also rising. The top step gets shorter by the same amount, unless the floor at the top rises too.
That is why a stair and the floors at each end have to be planned together. New hardwood at the bottom and a carpeted landing at the top produce different numbers from new floors at both ends, and the difference has to be worked out before the first tread is cut rather than discovered when the last one goes on.
Noses, returns and skirt boards
These are the details that separate a converted stair that looks built that way from one that looks retrofitted:
- The nose. Each tread overhangs the riser below, and the profile should relate to the nosing at the top landing where the stair meets the floor.
- Returns on an open side. Where the side of the stair is exposed, the nose wraps around the end of the tread with a mitered return, so you never see end grain.
- The skirt board. The trim running along the wall side of the stair has to meet each new tread and riser cleanly, which means scribing the new pieces to it or replacing it.
- Balusters. On an open stair, balusters that sit in the treads either come out and go back into the new treads, or get replaced along with the handrail.
All of it is finish carpentry, priced per tread rather than by square footage, which is why stairs always appear as a separate line on a quote.
Matching the stair to the floor
A stair connects two floors and is seen alongside both, so what it should look like is really a question about them.
With a hardwood floor, the treads are usually the same species as the floor and stained on site to match, rather than chosen from a catalog. Prefinished treads save time and rarely match a site-finished floor exactly.
With a luxury vinyl plank floor there are two routes. Stair nosings and tread covers made to match the plank give a continuous look and wear well. Real hardwood treads stained to sit alongside the plank are the other option, and often the more convincing one on a stair that is seen from the side. Painted risers, usually matched to the trim, with wood-toned treads work with either, and they forgive the scuffs every riser collects.
Where a stair meets two different floors, the nosing and direction decisions are the same ones covered in where one floor should stop and the next should start.
Fix the squeaks while it is open
A carpeted stair that creaks will creak louder as a hard stair, because the carpet and pad were absorbing the sound. With the carpet off and before new treads go on, loose treads are glued and screwed down to the stringers. It takes minutes per step at this stage and is very hard to do properly afterwards.
Safety, dogs and the runner option
Carpet on a staircase is softer to fall on and grips a sock or a paw better than a finished wood tread. That is a real consideration in a house with small children, older family members or a dog that takes the stairs at speed.
A matte or satin finish is noticeably less slippery than gloss. The other answer is a runner: a strip of carpet down the center of the stair, fastened at each step, leaving the wood visible at the sides. It keeps the grip and the quiet where feet land, still shows the treads, and can be removed later without touching the stair.
How carpet is fastened to a stair is covered in carpet installation in La Crosse, and best flooring for pets and kids covers the rest of the house.
Living with the stair out of use
Site-finished treads need drying time between coats, and a staircase is often the only way to the bedrooms. The usual answer is to finish alternate treads, so every other step is usable while the rest dry, then swap. Prefinished retrofit treads avoid most of the wait. Either way, the schedule is agreed before the carpet comes up, so nobody ends up sleeping on the sofa unexpectedly.
Planning yours
Stairs are best done with the floors they join, by the people doing those floors. When we measure for hardwood or luxury vinyl plank, we lift the stair carpet, tell you which of the three options your staircase allows, and work out the top and bottom riser heights against the new floor before quoting. Book a free in-home estimate and we will price the stair as its own line.