Noticed a big shift in how we do stair treads over the last 15 years

I was looking at some photos from a job I did in 2008 in Cleveland, all custom treads with solid oak and hand-cut stringers. Now most of my stair work uses pre-finished maple treads from a supplier, and I just scribe and install them in half the time. What caused it for me was a big project in 2015 where the builder pushed for speed over everything else, and I had to adapt. Anyone else feel like the trade has gotten way more about assembly than building from scratch?

3 comments

3 Comments

white.keith5d ago

I was just reading this blog post from a guy up in Canada who's been doing stairs for like 30 years, and he said the same thing about how we're basically just becoming installers now instead of craftsmen. He talked about how the whole industry shifted when the big box stores started pushing these prefinished systems and all the local lumber yards stopped carrying solid stock in anything but the most basic sizes. I mean, I remember when I could walk into my supplier and pick through a dozen different grades of oak for a single job, now it's all just whatever the factory sends you. It's kind of depressing when you think about it, because the builder is happy with the speed and the homeowner doesn't know any different, but we lost something that made the work feel meaningful. And the worst part is, the younger guys coming up don't even know what they're missing, they just think this is how stairs have always been done.

kimblack5d agoTop Commenter

Man that 2015 project sounds rough, I feel your pain. I hit the same wall around that time when builders started treating stairs like just another trim item instead of a real structural thing. Now I'm doing prefinished treads too and yeah it's way faster but something got lost. I miss the days when you'd spend an afternoon dialing in the bullnose on a solid oak tread and it felt like real craftsmanship. Now it's just pop them in and move on, and the old guys say we lost the art but the builders don't care because it's all about speed now.

parker_hall55d agoMost Upvoted

Honestly, I used to be one of those guys that said "prefinished is the way to go, you're just stuck in your ways" when the old timers complained. I figured it was just progress, you know? But hearing you talk about spending an afternoon on a single bullnose, that actually hit me. I remember the first time I hand-sanded a tread to get the grain just right on a mahogany staircase and it felt like I actually built something, not just assembled it. Now I'm starting to think we traded something real for speed, and it kind of sucks.