Hardwood floor to stairs transition
Hello
On the second floor of my sidesplit house (and the stairs leading to it) I have carpet. I hate it, and at some point I will replace it with hardwood flooring. Maybe even this year depending on how other projects go.
One thing I can’t figure out is how to get a seamless transition between the hardwood and the stairs. The hardwood will be either 3/4″ or 1″ thick. Sitting over a plywood subfloor. And maybe some foam underlayment do deaden foot noise a little.
Is there a trimmed down stair tread at the floor level at the top? Or is that part a special piece of flooring? If it’s a tread – how do you make sure its top is at the same level as the top of the flooring? Does it sit on the joists or the subfloor? Do you plane it down if there is a height difference?
Thansk in advance.
Replies
A. Tread to tread heights should be the same throughout the stair run. This will determine the thickness of your flooring.
B. Flooring at top stair nosing is a custom piece and thicker than the flooring to accommodate the nosing profile. This means the underside of the nosing is lower than the bottom of the flooring.
Frankie
Thanks for the explanation Frankie!
Will you replace the carpeting on the stairs with hardwood treads?
If you replace the 2nd floor carpeting with hardwood the piece at the top of the stairs, called a landing tread, should be the same thickness as the flooring. It will have a rounded nose (bullnose). This landing tread will be the same species as the hardwood flooring and a minimum of 3 1/2 inches wide.
Probably best to go with 3/4" flooring. That way if you keep the stairs carpeted the riser heights will be code compliant.
This picture will give you an idea of what I'm trying to say. This just has a carpet runner but even with fully carpeted stairs the concept is the same.
Thanks for that! Yes, I'll be removing the carpet from both the stairs and the floor.
It looks from your photo that the landing tread is the same thickness as the stair treads. Did you have any trouble matching them up?
And is that a piece of moulding under the landing tread? Is it only there to hold the end of the carpet runner?
I am considering adding a runner, both for looks and comfort. But with three kids it will get disgusting pretty quickly. Is it hard to remove and reinstall?
Originally the entire house and stairs were carpeted. I removed the carpet from the floors and stairs. All the hardwood that I put down was 3/4" thick.....flooring and stair treads. The landing tread is essentially a narrow stair tread. The landing tread could be also be made from a piece of the flooring if it is wide enough, by adding a bull nose to the leading edge. I'm not sure what the Canadian code is for stairs but I followed the USA code. If you replace one finished surface with another, in this case the carpeting with the hardwood flooring and stair treads...all the same thickness, this will ensure code compliance. Of course there are variances allowed.
All the wood is the same species and finished the same so matching was not a problem.
The molding under the landing tread is a piece of scotia. Originally I was going to put a piece under each stair tread nose but the Joints were so tight I didn't bother.
Yes, I just used the scotia to hold the stair runner and hide the cut end.
The runner is also a safety issue if the stair treads are polyurethaned as they can be slippery.
The runner is fairly easy to replace. You can use a carpet tackless strip and narrow crown staples or just the staples.
If you're going to do the treads yourself it might be a good idea to apply the finish to them before you install them.