Finished Stair Treads

With Stair-Treads.com, you can choose between two types of "finished" treads, risers, and many other related products - unfinished or prefinished. We use "unfinished" to describe products that are sanded, but no stain or finish has been applied. Many people call this "raw wood" (although a considerable amount of work has been done to this wood before you get it). When we ship unfinished products, they're ready for you (or your contractor) to apply your favorite stain and top-coat (or simply clear coat them for a beautiful "natural wood" look).

Below is an unfinished Red Oak stair tread. After being made from the rough lumber, we sand it several times with progressively fine sandpaper. This results in a very clean and smooth wood surface that doesn't require much preparation to stain and/or finish once you receive the material. Our products falling in this category will typically be noted as "unfinished"

Red Oak Unfinished Stair Tread

If a stair accessory is not unfinished, then it has some type of final-finish work performed on it. Whether the finish on the wood is several coats of a clear polyurethane, varnish, mineral oil, or a colored stain is applied first and then a top-coat, the resulting product is typically called "finished". We use a UV cured, Aluminum Oxide containing top-coat and custom blended stains produced in-house on all of our prefinished products. This type of stain and finish can only be performed by special machinery and is far more durable and will last far longer than any wood finish that air-dries or applied by hand on the jobsite.

Finishing wood is a messy and expensive project. Inexperienced woodworkers can quickly damage a piece of expensive wood beyond repair at nearly every step in the process. While the experienced craftsman may not find any difficulty in finishing wood, we recommend practicing on scrap wood before beginning a finish project on the final product.

Throughout Stair-Treads.com, we use the term "natural" to describe product that is "prefinished clear" - basically we've applied the clear top-coat (top-coat is the "glossy finish") but we haven't changed the color of the wood with colored stain.

If we stain a wood prior to top-coating it, we'll typically call it by the color name. Red Oak is our most popular wood to have stain applied to it. It's also one of the most popular hardwoods used for flooring. We offer seven premade color stains that match most popular flooring products on the market today, however we can custom stain material to accommodate our customers wants and needs. Our premade stains include:

The stain color you choose is 100% personal preference and is usually determined by your flooring selection or design preference. No color is more or less durable than the other, but all wood will need to be finished with some sort of oil or chemical coating to preserve it and provide protection from liquids and other contaminants. If the desire is to showcase the natural beauty of the wood, select a natural or clear finish. This will protect the wood, and results in a longer life span for your stair treads, risers, or other wood products. Natural finish preserves the wood while not hiding the natural beauty and variations of the particular wood species selected.

Have a look at a few samples of clear coated and stained stair treads below or check out the seven standard stain color swatches.

Natural Red Oak stair tread

"Natural"(Clear Coated Oak)

Gunstock Red Oak stair tread

"Gunstock Stain"

Butterscotch Red Oak stair tread

"Butterscotch Stain"

Saddle Red Oak stair tread

"Saddle Stain"

Golden Oak Red Oak stair tread

"Golden Oak Stain"

Unfinished Red Oak stair tread

"Unfinished Retro Tread"

Cherry Red Oak stair tread

"Cherry Retro Tread"

sample pack stain colors

See all seven stains in one convenient Sample Pack (and you can apply the cost of purchasing towards a future order).