Great forum and advise around here!
Learned most of my techniques from you guys and a lot of patience.
Now comes the hard part. Looking for some suggestions.
I need to do the steps and upper landing in my home. The first floor was done by the builder and its a rustic grade red oak strip with a satin finish.
The one BR is a lighter white oak hardwood and the other is some real nice Merbau wide plank. I installed both of these in the past few months. They are 3/4 inch prefinished.
I am considering using the Merbau for the tread since I found a good source for the stairnose but I haven't decided on what the riser should be! I thought about painting, but the wife doesn't like that idea. Other thoughts would be using a better grade red oak for the riser so it more closely matches the first floor.
Last thought is doing the whole thing in the Merbau.
Only real technical question I have for the installer guru's out there: If I go with plank instead of solid risers, how would you finish the raw ends on the non walled steps?
thanks again!

Ron

The rule of thumb is that the riser shoul match the trim color so that your vertical surfaces match. This also visually ties the stairs into the house. If you make the risers natural wood if your trim is painted it will be a solid mass of wood and not look like it matches anything else.

If you have natural wood trim then I would try to match the color to the riser.

This is not only a visual consern but also a saftey concern. If the treads match the risers sooner or later someone is not going to step where they are supposed to and take a tumble. It will look all the same.

Get some decorating books and I am sure you can show your wife some examples of risers matching the trim.

As far as the covering the end grain on the riser a decorative veritical piece of trim is added

I could ship you some of these.

http://www.decorativestairs.com/

They add a nice touch.

Perry, Those are so cool! I wish I had thought of that!

Perry..I think you found it!
Those risers are awesome!
We'll see what the other half thinks shortly.
Thanks for the suggestions.

Ron