What is included
A scope built around the room.
- 01Carpet removal and stair recapping
- 02New treads, risers and nosing
- 03Colour matched to your floor
- 04Railings, posts and spindles
- 05Landings and winder treads
- 06Squeak repair before finishing
Recapping versus refinishing what is there
If your stairs are carpeted, what is underneath is usually construction-grade stringers and rough treads that were never meant to be seen. Recapping installs new hardwood treads and risers over that structure, matched to your floor. If the stairs are already hardwood, refinishing sands and recoats them along with the floor so the colour and sheen match. The two jobs cost very different amounts, so the first site visit is about finding out which one you actually have.
Code sets the dimensions, not preference
Ontario building code regulates stair geometry: rise and run, tread depth, nosing projection, headroom, handrail height and the maximum opening between guard members. Critically, risers within a flight have to be consistent, and adding material to treads or a landing without accounting for it changes the rise at the top or bottom step. That is a trip hazard and a code problem, not a cosmetic one. We measure the flight before quoting and tell you if a proposed buildup will throw a riser out.
Squeaks get fixed before anything is finished
A staircase squeaks because a tread has separated from a riser or a stringer, or because a wedge or glue block has come loose underneath. Once new treads or finish are on, fixing it means going back through the finished surface or working from below if there is access. So squeak repair happens first: screws set and plugged, blocks reglued, loose wedges replaced. It costs very little at that stage and it is the complaint we hear most about finished stair jobs done by others.
Matching a new stair to an existing floor
Stair treads are thicker than flooring and often a different mill run, so they take stain differently even in the same species. We sample on the actual tread material, adjust and confirm before the whole flight is done. Where a floor is being refinished at the same time, doing stairs and floor together gets the closest match. Where the floor is prefinished, we match to a physical sample under your light, and we are honest that an exact match to a factory finish is not always achievable.
Railings, posts and open sides
An open-sided stair changes the scope: skirt boards, mitred returns on tread ends, and a guard that meets code. Replacing spindles with metal balusters is a common update and is straightforward when the handrail and posts stay. Replacing the handrail or newel posts is structural work and gets priced separately. We tell you which parts of a railing update are cosmetic and which touch the guard system, because those are different jobs with different requirements.
Standards and references
Where we cover
Stairs and railings across the GTA.
Questions