"GMM" wrote in message
...
I've been mulling this one for a while and now 'er indoors has decided
that we need to move on it(!)

Our stairs are a bit unusual in that they are hardwood and obviously
designed to be a 'feature' of the open plan design of the house. As
with any other feature, this comes with a penalty: In this case that
the hardwood has been damaged over time (mostly by a previous owner
hammering things into the sides etc), but also that the bare treads
are pretty noisy, so were carpeted before we bought the place.

Now the carpet has worn, particularly at the edge of each tread, and
one reason for this is that these are cut square, unlike the curved
'nose' that is normal in carpeted stairs. So I have a number of
options, including taking the carpet off and leaving them bare (and
noisy) or, preferred by SWMBO, replacing the carpet. There seems
little point in replacing the carpet on a square edge, as it'll only
wear again, but how can I put a bit of a curve there?

People normally only walk up the centre of a staircase, so, if the sides of
the treads look good enough as bare wood, you don't really need to cover
more than about 2/3 of the width at the centre, which would overcome the
problem of not being able to round off close to the sides.

Colin Bignell