Replacing carpet on stairs with wood
#5
Hi,

The bottom four steps of the main stairs in the house are oak with risers painted white.  The next 12 steps and the landing, which is about 3'x3' square, are carpeted.  I am starting to plan replacing the carpet with hardwood.

The second floor hallway is wall to wall carpeting.  That will be replaced with hardwood flooring during phase 2 this Spring.

The house is 17 years old, there is plywood with a routed nosing under the carpet.

A few questions YouTube and web sites don't seem to answer.  Hoping you can answer them here:

  1. The riser material I have seen on videos when it is applied is already white, and very thin.  It is attached with glue and four finish nails.  I am not clear what this material is, though. Is this just usually 1/4" MDF painted white?  Can it be purchased pre-painted or is it something I make?
  2. Do I start applying risers and treads at the top of the stairs and working down, or from the bottom and up?  I've seen both, but nothing explaining why one is better than the other.
  3. Can I defer applying the hardwood to the landing when I install the second floor hallway hardwood?  I am not certain I can do that without making the installation of the risers more complicated.  The landing would use the same flooring as the hallway, hence, I wanted to do them at the same time.
  4. My plan was to order prefinished red oak stair treads, with the nosing already attached.  Is this legitimate, or should I be ordering regular hardwood flooring and separate nosing and assembling it each step like I would a hardwood floor? 
If you are wondering why stairs first and hallway second it is because I can tackle each step as basically a independent mini-project without disturbing the entire stairway for weeks if I get distracted with the day job, etc.  I'll probably do the hallway when the wife and kids are visiting my in laws and I have the house to myself. 

Thanks for the help...I am sure I'll have a few more questions.
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#6
Keep in mind that un-carpeted can be a high risk for larger dogs (especially German Shepherd Dogs) and can be slippery for children and adults too.

I am OK with hardwood stairs, but a runner would be a must for me.
No animals were injured or killed in the production of this post.
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#7
(12-26-2017, 10:09 AM)Cooler Wrote: Keep in mind that un-carpeted can be a high risk for larger dogs (especially German Shepherd Dogs) and can be slippery for children and adults too.

I am OK with hardwood stairs, but a runner would be a must for me.

My wife just slipped on our CARPETED stairs, slippery hardwood may have resulted in a serious injury, I shudder to even think about it.
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#8
(12-26-2017, 10:30 AM)Phil Thien Wrote: My wife just slipped on our CARPETED stairs, slippery hardwood may have resulted in a serious injury, I shudder to even think about it.

I'm glad your wife was not badly hurt.  

My German Shepherd went down a full flight of steps (bloody nose, but he shook it off).  As you can see from the photo below the sharply angled rear lower leg has the joint touching against the step with each stair going down the stairs.  It leaves just a tiny bit of step to walk on.  Other breeds are no so  much impacted.

[Image: Dylan%20walking%20hammad_2312.JPG][Image: page1image22712.jpeg]

As you can see from the image below it is possible to have beautiful hardwood floors with an elegant stair runner.  The hardware allows easy replacement of the runners at a future date.  I recommend it.

[Image: IMGP6243_DxO.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&w=880&h=...uto=format]
No animals were injured or killed in the production of this post.
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