08/19/2026
Let’s talk about hard surface on stairs!!
Below is a picture of a basement job that our team recently installed in West Chester, PA
The clients wanted a vinyl floor throughout the basement, but also wanted the existing carpet on the basement stairs removed and replaced with a coordinating hard surface to compliment the new flooring.
We get this request often in the Wilmington area. My answer is always the same- every set of stairs is different, and that changes the approach for material and installation recommendation. Many houses in our area have elaborate spindle work, or a bullnose starter step, or other hurdles that prevents us from being able to install pre-finished treads. Also, most flooring manufacturers don’t make coordinating stairs treads in every color & collection. On those jobs that would require sanding, stain, and re-finishing - we have limitations on what colors can be achieved based on the wood species under the stain- and what stain colors were previously applied. It is almost impossible to make red oak stairs treads look like the cool/ yellow tones that we can achieve with white oak or birch. It doesn’t matter what stain is used- the wood will make the stain color pull red undertones. No way around it.
On this job we stripped the basement stairs and installed new un-finished white oak retro-treads over existing pine treads that were built with the house- the. We installed 5” unfinished white
Oak and a stair-nose at the landing. Then, our team was able to stain the stairs to coordinate with the new vinyl flooring we installed throughout the basement. Most people would never know that we put 3 different types of flooring down to make this beautiful design come together and meet our clients needs.
If you’re thinking about making changes to existing areas with hardwood- give us a call. Sometimes it’s cheaper to rip it out and replace with a new pre-finished floor, other times it makes more sense to leave the house for a few weeks and sand / refinish what is there. Every job is unique !
