Carpet to White Oak Staircase Remodel, North Fort

The Challenge

Staircase remodels live or die on the color match. The hardwood floors on the main level had just been refinished with a custom stain blend and needed to read as one continuous surface with the new stair treads. A close-but-not-quite match on a staircase is visible every time someone walks through the front door. The new white oak treads also needed to hold up to the heaviest traffic in the house -- every person, every day, going up and down -- which means the finish system matters as much as the color.

What We Did

We stripped out all the existing carpet, tack strips, and pad, exposing the original pine stair structure below. New white oak treads were fitted and installed over the existing structure with risers painted white to frame them cleanly. Stain color was matched directly to the recently refinished main floor -- same custom blend, same application process, same water popping before stain to ensure even absorption across the white oak grain. Bona Traffic HD as the topcoat, the same finish on the main floor, ties everything together. Standing at the base of the stairs, the treads and the floor read as one.