I wish it was already beat up hardwood, and I would have paid to have them refinished. refinishing is a bitch, the stairs are already hardwood so I am gonna try and refinish those instead of ripping them out to replace them with the hickory. if I can get the stain close enough I will call it a day. The way they built the treads for the hardwood into the stairs I would litterally have to demo the entire stairs and rebuild them from scratch. So I figure I will try the refinish route first and if it doesn't work, well I guess it's new stairs time lol