I was hoping I could get some advice on how best to handle my stairs.

I'm laying 3/4" hardwood. I'm approaching the top of the stairs from the long wall in the room.


I've discovered that the distance from the last board of the new flooring to the front edge of that top step is not even from one side of the step to the other. It's off by 1/4". It's 34 5/8" in the foreground and 34 3/8" in the background.

To compensate, I'm figuring I'll have to rip the last floor board at the proper angle to meet the stair nose on the top step.

Each step has a lip:


My next question is, am I supposed to cut the lip off and use the board I lay on the riser as the edge for the stair nose? If not, then couldn't I trim the stop step to create the proper angle for the stair nose to meet the flooring?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I can supply more pictures if y'all need 'em, if it would help.

Hi Brad:

Being off by only 1/4" is simple really. All one has to do is tweak the position of the stair nosing so it lines up square with the floor. But it looks like a straight rip may be needed anyway as I kind of doubt you'll "land" a full board against the groove edge of the nosing? Good news is that could be tweaked too, but I can't figure what width hardwood you're working with. 5 inch?

If you layout out some boards tight against one another without nailing them (towards the top step) you'll get a much better idea of what I'm saying. Let's see what that looks like then we can see what needs to be done with the riser, if anything.

Pictures work wonders!