Opinions on wood stairs (hardwood floors, engineered, townhome, paint)

[motifone]

Looking for some opinions please

We have bought a new construction townhome and will be having the builder install engineered hardwood floors in all rooms except the bathrooms. No carpet elsewhere in the house. We are not sure what to do with the stairs. It's a set of two stairs with a landing in the middle of the flights. The builder will do either of the following:

1. Install a berber rug on the stairs and the middle landing.

2. Install the same engineered hardwood planks on the middle landing, but do the stairs (steps & risers) in berber rug. (The builder also offered to do the first rounded step in wood, but seems odd and can't find any examples like that).

3. All wood stairs -- engineered planks on the middle landing and for all the step treads. The risers could be painted or wood planks as well. We think painted would look better, so it's not all so woody. The only catch with this install is that they wouldn't install a skirt/baseboard where the treads meet the walls.... the treads would be flush with the wall itself.

Putting aside considerations that rug is less slippery than wood, and opinions which might be best? Would it be weird to have carpet on the stairs when there is no carpet elsewhere in the house? Would have no skirts look strange?

We are leaning toward option #2 or #3.

I'll attach some pictures showing the stairs in the model. We won't have tile, but wood floors. I also did a Photoshop mock-up of what the stairs might look like in wood.

Anyway, share your thoughts if you'd like

[EscapeCalifornia]

I don't like carpet in high traffic areas like entry ways, halls, or stairs since it looks like crap in a few years. I wonder if anyone makes an engineered wood product with some anti-skid properties for safety on stairs.

[streetscenes]

We have wood stairs in our house, no problems with slipping or loose footing. I would not do carpet on stairs, high traffic area and carpet installation on stairs is expensive because of the labor involved. I think the mock up you did in photo #3 looks good, only worry would be scuff marks on the painted white risers.

[motifone]

Yeah the rug in the model, also a berber probably, is already looking sort of broken in. Granted, the model got a lot of traffic... but thats sort of a fast forward peek of what the rugs will look like a year or two down the line.

[golfgal]

I would go with all wood stairs--if you paint the risers you will regret that-think shoe marks constantly. I would then go with a patterned runner going up the middle of the stairs leaving some of the wood exposed. Just plain wood is very slippery but I do like how it looks.

Something like this:

[jmarkey]

I second the runner.

We just bought new construction with hardwood stairs. They look beautiful, but were slippery. When one of the dogs took a bad fall down the stairs, it was time for a change.

I don't care for carpet on the stairs, but I'm very happy with the look of a runner and footing going up and down is a lot more stable.

[Btrja]

Go 3/4 the width of the stairs for the runner. Looks the best.

[Threerun]

Runner properly secured to the stairs.

[nightcrawler]

Originally Posted by golfgal

I would go with all wood stairs--if you paint the risers you will regret that-think shoe marks constantly. I would then go with a patterned runner going up the middle of the stairs leaving some of the wood exposed. Just plain wood is very slippery but I do like how it looks.

Something like this:

very very pretty !

[motifone]

Thanks for sharing the ideas everyone. Even though the builder won't have skirt trim along the sides of the stairs, I still think we are leaning toward doing them in wood rather than carpet. I think having carpet only on the stairs when there is no carpet elsewhere in the house would be a bit odd. I guess we will just have to decide now whether all wood or wood treads with painted risers (white or an off white). My parents have painted risers and it looks nice, no scuff marks... but maybe with kids it's a different story.

If we did everything wood, I think we would use a runner to break it up so it doesn't look like wood overload.