Wow! That's bad!

His plan sounds like a good one. My issue is whether or not these are to code. Who's doing the railing?

The stair treads seem so narrow. Is it my imagination, or are there different sized stair treads?

OP: I am not too far from you. I might ask for a consultation from a stair expert. There are a few in town with good reputations.

There are YouTube videos talking about riser / tread minimums and codes. I believe 30 degrees is the maximum angle for that riser. I'll probably stick with that.

Haven't planned out the railing yet, I want some modern cable railing system with stainless steel and wood. Open for suggestions. Thanks.

"My issue is whether or not these are to code."

Might be an optical illusion but your second picture appears to show 2 different rises at the landing and the second step up which leads me to believe they are not to code already. The rise looks pretty short as well which leads me tot he same conclusion. Hopefully you did not cause your self a major sh**show if you need to sell this house one day.

I don’t know your city code, but in the four major cities where I’ve lived and done renovations, older houses are typically grandfathered unless you’re doing some threshold percentage of work or significantly altering the not-up-to-code item.

So, say, if you were gutting an existing old bathroom that didn’t meet current ADA requirements, there’s no obligation to upgrade it - so long as you’re sticking with your original layout from pre-Code days. In fact, it’s often impossible to make an old bathroom ADA complaint because there’s literally not enough room to space out the toilet and vanity and tub as required by the ADA code rules.

Same with stairs, ie if the original stair rises weren’t to code, and you’re just putting new wood on them, there’s no obligation to build a new stair structure that meets code. Because a lot of old houses literally would not have enough room to include stairs with a complaint footprint,

Likewise, when it comes time to sell, as long as you pulled the permits and got your projects approved and the county didn’t tell you that you needed to change the stair structure, then you should be good. I’ve sold three houses from pre-1900 where we’ve done significant work in three different states, and there is zero obligation to bring them to code when you sell. Your only requirement is to show permits for your work - which work may or may not need to be to code.

This forum loves to cite mythological counties where it’s against the law to sell a 1850 farmhouse unless it’s ADA complaint but I think there are only a handful of those in the country.