Selecting the right stain
 

When I bought my house just over 5 years ago, the first thing I did was rip up the carpet throughout the living, dining, 2 bedrooms and hallway, sanded the oak floors, and stained them with a red oak stain. Now we're thinking about tearing the carpet off the stairs leading up to our bedroom and staining the stairs, landing and floors up there, but just wondering. The stairs lead down to the hallway which is stained in red oak. Would it look awkward if we stained the stairs in the ebony color? Does anyone have any other suggestions we should consider? Should we maybe look into laying new carpet on just the stairs and finish the landing/floors upstairs with the stain instead? Any input is appreciated :thumbsup:

Ebony will show every speck of dirt.

I would use the same color of stain on the stairs. Or if you totally want ebony, then the other possibility may be to refinish the floors and use ebony on both the floors and stairs.

Just so you can see what we have, here's a picture of what we're working with

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...psd0200033.jpg

After talking with the wife about it, we've agreed on doing a carpet runner. Something kind of like this, but different colors obviously.

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps1dd69b0a.jpg

I've looked up on a couple how-to tutorials and doesn't look to be too complicated. I think you guys are right though, might just stick with the same color stain throughout. It's just that with the color we chose to paint the room, an ebony stain would flow a lot better, but red oak goes with just about anything too. Thanks for your input!