Stairs & Transitions
The new floor only looks finished because of the work that happens at the edges — the stair treads that get sanded, repaired, and refinished to match the new floor downstairs; the carpet-covered stairs that get pulled apart and rebuilt with solid white-oak treads and painted risers; the nosing that finishes every stair edge cleanly; the transition strip at the bedroom doorway where the new luxury vinyl plank meets the existing hallway carpet; the baseboard and shoe molding that closes the perimeter so no expansion gap is visible from any angle. The 1948 craftsman with the original fir treads ground down to nail heads after 76 years of foot traffic. The 1972 split-level where carpet up the stairs has held three decades of grime and the family wants the original maple treads back. The 1996 ranch where the new hardwood meets the existing hall carpet at a doorway and no transition strip is in place. The 2005 townhome where the contractor laid the floor but never finished the baseboard. Stairs and transitions is the finish-carpentry family that closes every flooring project at the edges. Handis self-performs every scope. From $150 for a transition strip install to $6,500 for a full carpet-to-wood stair conversion on a 14-tread staircase with new skirt board and finish.
Services
What Stairs & Transitions Covers
Stairs and transitions is the five-service finish-carpentry family that closes every flooring project at the edges — at the stairs, at the doorways between rooms, and at the perimeter of every room. Each service stands alone (a transition strip install is its own quote, a baseboard run after a floor install is its own scope) and most flooring projects pick up two or three together. Handis self-performs every stair and trim scope as core finish-carpentry work — no licensed-trade handoff required. From $150 for a transition strip install at a doorway to $6,500 for a full carpet-to-wood stair conversion on a 14-tread staircase with new skirt board, painted risers, and stain-grade tread finish.
Stair Tread Replacement & Refinish
Sand, repair, replace, and refinish stair treads on an existing stair stringer — typically the original treads on a 1920s through 1970s home that have ground down at the nosing, cracked at a knot, or worn through the finish from decades of foot traffic. Includes individual tread removal where needed, replacement with matched solid hardwood (white oak, red oak, fir, maple to match the original species), sanding to bare wood, stain and finish to match the new downstairs flooring (water-based polyurethane, oil-based polyurethane, or hardwax oil), and the matched riser paint or stain finish. From $1,500 for a sand-and-refinish on a short flight to $4,500 for a full tread replacement on a 14-tread staircase with finish.
Stair Tread Replacement & Refinish — sand, repair, replace, stain, finish
Carpet-to-Wood Stair Conversion
Pull the existing carpet, pad, and tack strip off the entire staircase, demo the existing carpet-grade stair structure (subtreads only, not the stringers), install new solid hardwood treads with rounded bullnose, install new painted or stained risers, scribe a new skirt board to the wall on both sides if the original is missing, install nosing returns on the open side of the staircase where applicable, and finish the treads and risers to match the new downstairs flooring. The most common Seattle stair conversion. From $2,500 for a closed-on-both-sides straight run with 10 treads to $6,500 for an open-side 14-tread staircase with full nosing returns, skirt board, and stain-grade finish.
Carpet-to-Wood Stair Conversion — full conversion with new treads, risers, skirt
Stair Nosing & Trim
Hardwood stair nosing install for hardwood and laminate stair installs — the rounded or bullnose-profile edge piece that finishes the top of every tread on a flush-with-finish-floor install. Includes matched-species nosing (white oak, red oak, maple, hickory in stain-grade or paint-grade), miter cuts at the wall return and the open side return, structural-screw plus adhesive fastening to the tread subbase, and finish to match. Also covers stair-edge trim install on retrofit installs where the original carpet has been pulled but new treads are not in scope. From $400 for a short run of nosing on a closed staircase to $1,200 for a 14-tread staircase with full nosing returns and trim.
Stair Nosing & Trim — bullnose, miter returns, finish trim
Transition Strips & Thresholds
Transition strip install at every doorway between rooms where two different finish floors meet — hardwood-to-tile T-molding, hardwood-to-carpet reducer, laminate-to-vinyl threshold, tile-to-engineered transition. Matched species or material to one of the two adjacent floors, structural-screw or adhesive fastening per the substrate, and the right profile for the floor-height transition (a half-inch height difference needs a reducer, not a T-molding). Covers every common doorway scenario in a Seattle home. From $150 for a single transition strip install at a doorway to $450 for a full whole-floor transition scope across multiple rooms.
Transition Strips & Thresholds — T-molding, reducer, threshold, end cap
Baseboard & Shoe Molding with Flooring
Install or reinstall baseboard and shoe molding alongside a new flooring project — the perimeter close that hides the expansion gap on every floating floor and finishes the edge of every nail-down or glue-down install. Includes matched-profile baseboard (the existing or a new specified profile), miter cuts at every inside and outside corner, scribed coping at the corner where the profile dictates, brad-nail attachment to the wall through the drywall into the stud or anchor, shoe molding (quarter-round or matched profile) at the baseboard-to-floor seam, and one coat of fill-and-caulk before paint. From $600 for a baseboard run on a single room install to $2,000 for a full whole-floor baseboard and shoe molding scope across multiple rooms.
Baseboard & Shoe Molding with Flooring — perimeter, miters, coping, shoe
Stairs & Transitions Pricing
Final pricing depends on the staircase length, tread material, the matching profile and finish to the new downstairs flooring, the perimeter run on baseboard scopes, and the number of doorway transitions. Each child page lists detailed pricing for that scope family. Carpet demo and haul-off on a stair conversion is included in the conversion scope. Request a free estimate for an accurate quote.
Tell us the staircase, the doorways, and the perimeter — we will quote the stair, transition, baseboard, and shoe molding scope as one finish-carpentry package.
Why Seattle Homeowners Book Handis for Stairs & Transitions
Most flooring projects we are called to finish in Seattle were quoted by a flooring-only contractor who skipped the edges — the stairs that still have the old carpet on them, the doorways with no transition strip, the perimeter with no baseboard, the open side of the staircase with no nosing return. The result is a floor that looks great in the middle of the room and unfinished at every edge. Stairs and transitions is the finish-carpentry trade family that closes the project — and a project is not actually finished until every edge is closed. Handis runs both scopes (floor install and the finish carpentry around it) on the same project so the customer is not coordinating two contractors. We match the stair tread species and finish to the downstairs floor, we match the transition strip to the floor it borders, we match the baseboard profile to the existing or to the new specified detail. The edges look like they belong to the floor because they were installed by the same crew.
Matched species and finish to the downstairs floor
Stair treads and stair nosing get matched to the downstairs floor species (white oak for white oak, red oak for red oak, maple for maple, fir for fir) so the staircase reads as part of the same install, not a separate piece. The stain and finish (water-based polyurethane, oil-based polyurethane, hardwax oil) get matched the same way. We do not put a generic builder-grade tread on a custom-finished hardwood floor.
Code-compliant tread depth, riser height, and nosing overhang
Stair tread depth (minimum 10 inches per the International Residential Code for residential installs), riser height (maximum 7.75 inches), nosing overhang (3/4 to 1.25 inches), and uniformity across the staircase (no more than 3/8 inch deviation between the shortest and the tallest riser) — every spec is verified before the new treads are installed. We will not install a tread that violates code, even when the existing staircase has been out of spec for decades.
Carpet demo and disposal included on a stair conversion
A carpet-to-wood stair conversion includes the carpet pull, the pad pull, the tack-strip extraction, the staple removal from the subtreads, and the same-day haul-off on the Handis truck. The customer does not see the demo on the driveway and does not coordinate a separate hauler. The subtreads are left scrape-clean before the new treads dry-fit.
Scribed skirt board and clean miter returns on the open side
The skirt board (the trim piece that runs along the wall on the closed side of the staircase) is pencil-scribed to follow every tread and riser contour exactly — never gapped, never caulked-over to hide a poor fit. Nosing returns on the open side of the staircase get clean 45-degree miters with a tight glue joint, never end-grain showing at the open side. The detail at the open side of a staircase is what separates a real conversion from a cosmetic one.
Right transition profile for the floor-height difference
A T-molding fits flush-to-flush between two floors at the same height (laminate-to-engineered, hardwood-to-tile on the same elevation). A reducer fits where one floor sits higher than the other (hardwood to thinner carpet, engineered to thinner vinyl). A threshold fits at an exterior doorway or between rooms with a more dramatic height change. We measure the height difference at every doorway before ordering the strip — wrong profile is a trip hazard and a re-do.
Insured, background-checked, one-year project warranty
Handis carries general liability and workers' compensation; every technician has cleared a background screening. One-year project warranty on the stair and trim workmanship — tread replacement, riser install, skirt board fit, nosing miter, transition strip install, baseboard and shoe molding install. A failure traced to our work (a tread that develops a squeak from a missed adhesive bead, a transition strip that lifts from a missed structural fastener) gets re-installed at no cost. Tread and floor finish from the manufacturer warranty path is named separately on the quote.
Estimate
Tell us the staircase (closed or open on one side, number of treads, current condition and material), the doorway transitions (number of doorways, the floor types meeting at each), and the room perimeter (number of rooms in scope for baseboard and shoe molding). A wide phone photo of the staircase plus a photo of each doorway transition and a sample of the existing baseboard profile helps us quote without a second round. We send a written estimate with the stair, transition, baseboard, and shoe molding scope itemized so you see what each adds.
What Our Customers Say
Recent stairs and transitions reviews from verified Seattle-area customers.
1972 Ravenna split-level. Carpet up the stairs since the day the house was built. We wanted to expose the original maple treads underneath. Handis pulled the carpet, found the treads were sound but the nosing was crushed on every step, replaced four worst treads with matched maple, sanded and refinished the rest, painted the risers white. Stairs look like they were built that way.
1948 Madison Park craftsman. Full carpet-to-wood conversion on the main staircase — 13 treads, open on one side. Handis demoed the carpet, replaced every tread with new white oak to match the downstairs hardwood we just installed, mitered the nosing returns on the open side, scribed a new skirt board on the closed side. Risers painted Benjamin Moore Decorator's White. Five working days. Looks like an original 1948 staircase rebuilt to spec.
1996 Burien ranch. The original install crew laid new luxury vinyl plank but never put transition strips at any of the bedroom doorways. Four bedrooms, four doorways, four different reducer-to-carpet transitions because the carpet in each bedroom is a slightly different height. Handis measured each height difference, ordered the right profile reducer for each doorway, and installed all four in one half-day visit.
2005 Wallingford townhome. The original contractor laid the floor but never finished the baseboard. We lived with quarter-round-only at the floor for three years before we hired Handis. They installed 7-inch flat-stock baseboard around the whole main floor with the right miter and coping, plus shoe molding at the baseboard-to-floor seam. Fill-and-caulk done in one pass, ready for our paint crew the next day.
1924 Queen Anne second-floor renovation. We installed nail-down white oak in the bedrooms and the hall but no nosing at the stair edge at the top of the stairs. Handis cut a matched white-oak bullnose nose-and-return piece, fit it to the stair edge with full miter at the wall and the open side, structural-screwed and glued to the subtread. Looks like one continuous floor that finishes at the stair edge.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Handis stairs and transitions — pricing, scope, the carpet-to-wood conversion process, code-compliant tread spec, transition strip selection, and how the finish carpentry ties into the new floor.