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
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.
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.