Hello,

I'm a ways into a project of installing 9/16" pre-finished engineered hardwood flooring in my bedroom, upstairs hallway, and down our main flight of stairs. Most of it has been straight forward, but the stairs have me stumped due to the way they were originally built. Simple "builder's grade" stairs out of 2x, but the stair skirt boards aren't tall enough. When I go to put the new stair nosing on, it'll overhang the skirt by a good 1/2"+.



My initial thought is to try to build this up somehow with 1x, but I'm not really sure if that's the best approach.

The more challenging part is where the top set of stairs hits a small landing. The top skirt board and stair nose/riser sticks out past the drywall quite a bit, and once the new riser and nose are on, it'll be a couple of inches.



My only thought so far is to try to make something like this corner trim block shown on this floor trim here.



Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I've really stalled out on this project trying to figure out the next step here.

It looks like you are planning rouse a thick riser. You could use quarter inch or eighth inch birch plywood ripped down for the riser which will allow the nosing to project less. A base cap on the stringer could make a better ending for the nosing, but would need to be installed before the nosing. You can stop the cap before it reaches the corner, at the sheet rock, paint the exposed end, and with one eighth plywood riser put a radius type of return on the end of the tread for the first step.
Of course you will need to match the factory finish where the nosing is machined.

Thanks Pete!

One quick question I noticed based on my own pictures--should the new nosing overhang the new riser face (and great suggestion on going with something thinner--not sure why my flooring guy sold me such thick risers in retrospect!) like I show in the second photo, or should the riser butt up against the bottom like in my first photo?

Just for a sanity check, I did a quick 3D sketch of what I was thinking to extend the skirt boards. It'll all be painted white, so I can caulk the joint between the existing skirt and the new trim, I'm just not sure how well it'll all look in the end and if there's a better/more obvious solution I'm missing.

Sometimes doing trim carpentry you have to have experience to make things go together and look right. The way I have learned to solve problems is to visit older homes when they are on tour, like fund raising tours and focus on the details. Usually at the end of a run where the trim ends, there is either a dead end where it dies or it miters back into the wall, called a return. A piece of coving can be fragile, so try to end it where it won't be damaged by the broom or a vacuum. A base cap like what you are planning to put on top of the skirt board usually connects to the top of the base board both at the top of the stairs and at the floor's base board downstairs. It takes planning to make all the architecture work together.
If you are going to use a scotia molding under the nosing it is easy to instal the nosing first and then the riser. Riser first, then nosing, all the way up to the top of the stairs so you cover any gap with the rabbited part of the nosing if you don't have access to the scotia to match the flooring. I think that the scotia should match the flooring so the treads look substantial. The scotia would be installed after the riser is painted, if you use it, then no need for a scribe fit to the underside of the nosing.