Why Staircase Remodeling Can Change the Appearance of an Entire Entryway

When I walk into a home for the first time, one of the things I notice right away is the staircase. I’ve been working with hardwood floors and stairs for many years, and I can usually look at an older staircase and immediately start imagining what it could become.

I’m Sergey, owner of ASR Hardwood Floors, and staircases have become one of my favorite parts of what we do.

A lot of homeowners look at their stairs and think, “They’re old, but they’re just stairs.” I see them differently. Your staircase is often right in the middle of your home. You see it when you walk through the front door. Your family walks past it every day. Your guests notice it. When we change the staircase, sometimes it feels like we remodeled the entire first floor.

And it doesn’t always mean tearing everything apart.

Sometimes I can look at the existing staircase and see that the structure is good—we just need to bring it back to life. Other times, we need new hardwood treads, new risers, railings, posts, or balusters. Every house is different, and that’s actually what I enjoy about this work. I don't want every staircase we build to look exactly the same.

I like sitting down with a homeowner, looking at inspiration photos, talking about the floors they already have, and figuring out what will look right in their home.

For example, the combination of natural oak, white risers, simple square wood posts, and black metal balusters can completely open up an older entryway. But even then, it's the little details that matter—the exact wood tone, how the handrail meets the post, how the stairs transition into the flooring, and how everything looks from both upstairs and downstairs.

Those are the things I pay attention to.

There’s also something special about coming back at the end of a project and seeing the homeowner's reaction. They hired us to remodel their staircase, but once everything is finished, they're looking around the entryway saying, “It looks like a different house.”

That's one of the best parts of this work for me.

After all these years, I still enjoy taking something that's been in a home for decades and figuring out how to make it beautiful again. I don't want it to look like we simply replaced a few pieces of wood. I want the finished staircase to look like this is how the home was always supposed to be.