Stairs & Steps: What Goes Into Installing (or Refinishing) a Safe, Beautiful Staircase

Stairs get their own line on our pricing sheet for a reason — they're the most labor-intensive, detail-heavy part of a flooring project. Here's why, and what to consider before you tackle yours.

Of everything we install, stairs take the most time per square foot by a wide margin. Every tread, riser, and nosing is cut and fitted individually — there's no rolling out a plank and moving on. Whether you're refinishing an existing staircase or installing a new one alongside your floors, here's what actually goes into getting it right.

Why Stairs Are Priced and Installed Differently Than Flat Flooring

A flat room is a repeating pattern of straight cuts. A staircase is dozens of unique pieces — treads, risers, stringers, nosing, and often winder or bullnose steps that are each shaped differently. Every angle has to be measured and cut on-site rather than pre-planned, which is why stairs typically run several times the labor cost per square foot of a flat-floor install. Curved or winding staircases, like the one above, take even longer since no two treads are quite the same shape.

Matching Your Stairs to Your Floors

Stairs read as a single continuous element in most homes, so mismatched wood tone or plank style between your stairs and your floors is one of the most noticeable design missteps we see. When we install new hardwood floors, we always discuss whether the stairs should match exactly, complement in a related tone, or contrast intentionally (common in painted-riser, stained-tread designs). If you're installing LVP on the main floor, solid or engineered hardwood is still usually the right call for the stairs themselves — vinyl doesn't hold up as well to the wear pattern stairs get.

Safety, Code, and Tread Considerations

Stair work isn't just cosmetic. Tread depth, riser height, and nosing projection all fall under residential building code, and re-treading a staircase is a chance to correct anything that's out of spec on an older set of stairs. Non-slip nosing profiles and consistent tread surfaces matter even more on stairs than on flat floors, since uneven or slick treads are a real fall risk. This is one area where we'd always recommend a professional install over DIY — the margin for error is small and the safety stakes are real.

Refinishing vs. Replacing: How to Decide

If the treads are structurally solid and the wear is cosmetic — scuffs, dulled finish, minor scratches — a sand-and-refinish brings a staircase back to like-new for a fraction of a full replacement. Replacement makes more sense when treads are cracked, soft, or you're changing wood species or stain color significantly, since refinishing can only go so far in shifting the base tone of the wood. We'll always tell you honestly which category your stairs fall into during an estimate.

Our Recommendation

If your stairs are original to the home or haven't been touched in a decade or more, it's worth having them looked at alongside any flooring project — even if you're not ready to commit yet. That's exactly what we walk through, free, on every estimate that includes a staircase.

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