Thanks to all who submitted the most recent comments. Interesting the divergence of opinion. I would say, whether all wood stairs look more modern or colonial or rustic depends in large part on the wood species, how it is milled and how it is finished. My particular choice is a European white oak, wide plank, wire brushed, with a somewhat grayish finish. It has some character (a few knots, etc.), though not heavy. I've seen tons of examples of wood floors very similar to this in very modern spaces (similar to the photos in printesa's recent post above), and I think it is even quite trendy, but in a good way. The mid-range tone and neutral hues form a great backdrop and would probably work with a variety of styles. It certainly works with mine (which is more contemporary/modern), and I doubt I will ever get tired of my wood floors (and soon to be wood stairs).

Regarding safety, this material has a very matte finish and a fair amount of texture due to the wire brush treatment. So it is a lot less slippery than most hardwood, and I'm not particularly concerned about slips on the stairs, but we shall see. My g/f and I do figure that a runner, or perhaps just treads on the steps, is a possibility, as some of you have suggested. I'm actually more concerned about how our two cats will take to the stairs, because they love to chase each other up and down the stairs, and I imagine they will take a few skids before they learn to slow down a bit!

At any rate, I am now committed to the wood risers. Like many here, I actually do prefer painted risers in general, and that is what I had planned to do for my stairs originally. But when I mocked it up, I was rather stunned at how much the stairs (with my faux painted risers) demaned attention. They just looked bigger and more intrusive in the room (which makes sense, since the white risers brightened them up so much). While I'm sure I would have gotten used to that look over time, I just didn't want the stairs to be a focal point in the room, and the wood risers just felt more calm and subdued, which I think will let other aspects of the space shine, where I want people to focus. Obviously no right or wrong for decisions like this (and I will probably second guess myself--as is my wont--post installation), but I am fairly confident at this point that I have reached the right decision for me.

Thanks again for all the great and thoughful input!

Just for a completely different opinion: I paint treads and risers (what ever color goes with the decor for the treads, risers always woodwork color). I like the runner to be showcased by the paints.

I like the idea of the wood risers in this colour. Like you, I love the look of a painted risers...but only when the wood is a stronger colour than what you have chosen. If you had a stronger wood colour, the painted riser looks very sharp. As it is, the impact of the white riser would be limited and therefore would lose its significance in the gray/white oak.

Now that I have decided on the risers, I have one remaining design choice for the stairs. I have bullnose trim for the treads, but am considering having my contractor square off the edge. He did a sample for me and it looks really good. Of course he had to stain and finish the cut edge, and it blends very nicely with the rest of the trim piece. I prefer the square edge as it looks more modern, though the bullnose is some of the nicer bullnose trim I have seen. My one concern about squaring the edge is wear. I know it won't wear as well as the bullnose edge, but there are only two of us here and we are always in slippers or barefoot inside. The trim pieces are solid white oak.

Any thoughts on this question? I figure if I get 10+ years of wear on the stairs before I have to refinish, I'll be fine. Should I go for the look I prefer (square edge) or would this be too riskly and too prone to wear?

I've attached pics of the bullnose trim and the squared off sample my contractor did using the same trim piece.

Bullnose trim:

Squared edge sample:

Both look good..you were mentioning the wear..I would guess that the edge if the square one would wear off faster given the angle, but I don't know how fast..We don't wear shoes in the house, so for us, it wouldn't make much of a difference, but if you wear shoes, the hard sole of the show would probably scuff the edge faster

no brainer, white risers!!!!! it's one of those rules you just follow, it's traditional but that's cause it works. it will bring out more contrast in the wood, also wood is dark and will darken up the whole stairwell, you dont want it to feel like someone is ascending some black hole. I might recommend you give the hardwood above the riser an extra coat of finish to make it stand out. here's a picture of what it looks like in my house. you'll note the bottom riser is hardwood to help with the transition of the floor but this is optional

Maybe paint the risers the same putty color as the beautiful chairs in your living room. Also to tie in paint the recess around your fire place the same color.

If you are using that good wood....don't paint them.

Just wondering, Steven, how you put the hardwood over each "tread" of the stair? Was it a very thin layer of hardwood? I am planning to paint my risers white when the rug is removed.

Concerned about decreasing the height of each riser.

Leekosior, the new treads are comprised of 5/8" engineered wood planks (same product I had installed previously on the first floor). Once the carpet and pad were removed, we were of course down to the plywood stairs. I had my contractor install a 1/4" cork underlayment on each tread, and then the engineered wood went on top of that (the cork was for sound control).

It turned out that the thickness of the cork plus the engineered wood was almost exactly the same as the old carpet plus pad. So the height of the risers is quite uniform throughout. (I'm glad I suggested the cork underlayment to my contractor, because without that the top and bottom riser heights wouldn't quite match the other risers.)

It looks great!

Thank you, Steven, for your detailed reply. So appreciated! Well done on your stairs!

I would definitely choose white risers , not the off white or cream colour you show in your examples in the photo , I know what look you are going for and to be honest if you don't choose white and go with the cream colour it will look like you are trying to make it look like something it's not , if that makes any sense to you !!! I know it is hard !!! Because I know the look you are going for is hard to do it with a rustic or lighter floor , the white riders look better with a darker floor and that what I mean when I say your trying to make something look like something you can't . Cream or off white in my opinion isn't the best choice specially if you're spindles are white

I don't know if you have actually paid for or have already installed your stairs , if you haven't you might want to think about going darker , if you have already invested in your flooring then I would still go for the white risers , the cream or off white will look out of place specially if your baseboards and mouldings are white , spindles too !! I think the floors are beautiful , but with a floor that light in colour it looks best with dark , dark furniture etc do you have a contrast and everything will pop !!! Or you could go light and airy , grey sofa , white draped , grey Walsh or even a light blue wall with dark pieces of furniture, and everything els white

I prefer painted risers. Not only is the contrast between the white paint and the stain of the treads a great contrast cosmetically, the contrast can help people see clearly as they walk up the stairs. This is especially important for adults as they get older and for young children whose vision is not yet fully developed. In the house I just bought, the stairs and risers are painted dark blue, as are the walls of the staircase. In spite of some white trim at the lower sides of the walls, it is about impossible to see. ASAP I plan to paint the risers white, stain the treads to match the hardwood floor, and paint the walls a light color. Not only will the stairway look brighter and more cheerful, the stairs will be much safer.

Yes , that's what I was saying , white all the way

Michelle, Shelia, appreciate your comments. I actually finished the stairs last year (results shown in a post above), but since the thread's been resurrected for the moment, thought I may as well share another "after" pic, this one taken at night, with the stairs illuminated by a large pendant I had installed in the stairwell. Cheers!

steven (people need to look at the dates on these comments! lol) I think you made a fine choice. The wood is beautiful. good idea about the cork.

I know this is super old, but this thread was a nice find!! I have someone doing mine right now & he suggested painting the risers. (I have anyways been opposed to this as they are wood.) Appreciate seeing a finished product to reinforce my decision.

Great thread. still helpful after all this time! Thanks

Carpeted stairs are less noisy than wood stairs. Shoes can leave scuff marks on the wood as easily as they can leave a bit of dirt on the carpet.

Where did you buy this flooring?. I love it and I'm trying find floors exactly to that

Thanks, Jacob. My floors and stairs are Provenza, Epic Collection, Grey Frost. However, Provenza discontinued this particular style (right around the time I did the stairs). But if you look on Provenza's web site, you can find similar looking styles. In particular their New York Loft collection is very similar to what I have, in terms of plank width and type of finish (urethane, as opposed to an oil-based finish). Within this collection, the Canal Street, West End, and Poet's Corner styles all look somewhat similar to my flooring. Another one of their styles that looks a lot like mine is from their Dutch Master collection, DM002. Of course there are lots of other brands to choose from, and lucky for you, in the past few years this type of floor (engineered European white oak) has become quite popular, and there are a ton more choices than when I was shopping for new floors around six years ago. If you happen to be interested in Provenza's product, you should be able to find a retailer near you from their web site. Good luck.

Hi there! I'm glad I found this post. We are also changing carpet for eng. wood in the stairs and I would love to see some opinions. I'm going light eng. wood to match the downstairs' tile and I'm not sure if white risers or entire wood, since
trim is white and the rest is espresso/blackblack. Photo attached. Thanks in advance for your kind comments!

HU-106854066, with the engineered wood you are planning to use, you could easily go either way (painted or wood risers). Some who commented on my project suggested I use wood risers, because the lighter wood tone wouldn't offer a lot of contrast with a white riser. I decided to do all wood, not so much for that reason, but because in my house, the stairs are quite central to the downstairs area. I felt that with painted risers, there would be more contrast and the stairs would attract more attention, vs. using wood risers. Plus, I felt that with wood risers the overall effect would lean more contemporary/modern than with wood treads and painted risers. So it really depends on what style you are after and if you want to make a statement with the stairs, or have them be more subdued.

One thing to consider is, if you do white risers, they will show scuff marks, certainly more than wood risers. So could be a bit of a maintenance issue (cleaning or touching up painted risers). On the other hand, you might want to consider painting the risers to match the dark color of your railing. That could look pretty sharp.

Here's one example of stairs with wood treads and dark risers:

I raised a family in a house with wood risers. There was no maintenance required and I didn’t even know that I should have been appreciative of that aspect. We now also have a beach house which has painted risers. It is just mostly my husband and myself and I find I have to use a magic eraser at least monthly on the risers to remove kick marks. If we raised a family here, I would have been driven crazy by needing to do that more often.

Thank you Steven for your comments and especially for the photo....indeed it is a great idea and the dark raisers look just amazing!! I like the much better than the withe ones!

I realize this is an old thread, but have been trying to make the same decision for a second story addition. We already have a modern/contemporary space and wide plank engineered oak floors throughout the first level. After seeing your photos I am similarly convinced that wood risers are the right choice for the reasons you mentioned. Thanks for the help!

Thank you for this discussion. I'm in the middle of converting carpeted stairs (which we ripped out years ago and painted purple) for red oak risers and treads. Thanks for reassurance. Ours is at entry and I like rustic/colonial/sw. Just trying to decide whether skirt (which needs to be built) should be in red oak or painted white like rest of trim.

I love the he look of all wood stairs. I had my carpeted stairs redone in all solid oak.

If you painted birch wood white for the risers, would that work? Or is MDF or Melamine a better product to use for a white riser?

HU,,if the birch is already in place, it's fine to paint it.

This post totally helped me 5 yrs later so thanks so much for the great thread! All wood it is :)

The people who have all wood stairs and no runner, no slipping? And noise isn’t bad? I have a runner now and not sure about my next house we are renovating..

We have all wood stairs, no runners..no slipping or noise. Even when our kids were younger, there were no problems with slipping

@mydogdeuce, re: slipping, we've had absolutely zero problems with our hardwood stairs. In fact, slipping was maybe more of a concern with our old carpeted stairs. Note that I used engineered wood that is wire-brushed and has a very matte finish, so it provides plenty of friction.

As for noise, the wood surface does reflect sound more than the old carpet, so there is more sound transmission from upstairs and one can hear more echo in the stairwell than before. It's not bad, though, and I'm quite used to it by now. I was originally planning to install a runner, largely to help muffle noise, but never got around to it. I may still do that at some point, but we have two cats, one of whom loves to scratch everything upholstered or carpeted, so a runner might be asking for trouble.

BTW, I'm seeing more and more very aesthetically pleasing acoustic wall tiles. It's something I've considered mounting to one of the walls in the stairwell, to help reduce sound transmission/echo. Something you might want to keep in mind, if you do go with wood stairs in your reno, but want to help tamp down noise.

Thanks for the input! Just getting all my ideas together as the architect finishes the plans

Did you ever regret your decision? I'm currently trying to make the same choice.

@stevenlh123 I agree with you regarding paneling to muffle sound. The new contemporary paters are exciting. If mounted on the ceiling, it won't narrow the stairwell. Just a thought.

@Ian No, no regrets whatsoever about using wood risers. It was a good choice aesthetically, and no scuff marks to deal with (as would have happened with white, painted risers).

This thread is dates but is perfect as I consider the same choice!

Constance, several people have made similar comments over the years; so nice to hear that this thread is still helpful to others as it was for me!

Wow, such a helpful thread from years ago. Have to make the same decision now and the builders are suggesting we paint the risers because they are paint grade maple. I want to keep it all stained. Cannot go back and replace the risers with stain grade wood now. Is it okay if we stain the risers? In the picture, the treads are already stained clear.

Try staining a few and see if you like them. If you do, great! If you don’t, then paint. Can’t hurt to try the stain first.

They are going to charge 400 for paint after if we don't like the stain so trying to avoid that if possible :(

Perhaps you could get some of the riser material from the builder and stain it yourself, and place it against the stair treads to see how they will blend.

I'd be concerned that the grain patterns in the treads and risers are rather different, and staining will emphasize the grain pattern in the risers. But the best way to know would be to stain a sample.

Either way, though, I think your stairs will look great.

I am thankful that this post/thread is still available - we just received a text from our hardwood guy asking for our choice of wood or painted risers. I appreciate everyone's comments and experiences - this will help us in our decision!