I would think it’s a matter of wear and tear. Stairs get worn right down the middle and all the traffic is in the same place. If you can’t sand them down and refinish them, it would need to all be redone.
When you walk up and down steps, a significant amount of stress goes on the edge, which laminates aren’t really designed for, and this causes excess wear. And because the top layer is so thin, it gets worn through to the lower layers pretty quickly, or it will crack because of the overhang.
They try to solve this by creating a bull-nose edge piece or a corner trim piece, but IMO most of these look pretty ugly and kludgy, and can create treads that aren’t completely flat.
I have done several laminate staircases (down to basement, etc). You just have to make sure that the manufacturer of the laminate flooring has good sturdy thick stair treads for the ends of each stair - and that they are same coloring. I’ve h ad the guys show up with some strange color of stair tread (because other not in stock) and I did not like it.
Have had no complaints on the laminate staircases, although it has only been 3-4 years.
^ Yeah, there are probably brands of laminate flooring that do a halfway decent job.
I think the underlayment is more critical with laminate, because the flooring is so much thinner. My son had laminate flooring put in his house, and there were a couple steps where the boards underneath weren’t even - they had some small dips in them. This quickly cracked where a joint crossed over the dips.
For this (and other problems) the installer ripped out all the laminate and installed hardwood floors everywhere at no extra cost to my son, which I thought was above and beyond. Much nicer. 
Thanks all.
@menloparkmom D is in college. Luckily we have a basement kitchen from a prior project. I do want to put the extra blocking in the studs for handrails should we need them in the future, but in reality, if we need handrails, we won’t be able to navigate the stairs!
And @mathmom Good thoughts on a larger shower. I’m waiting for a friend/plumber to consult. I want to get his advice on the relative costs of moving various plumbing.
I think I’ll read up on our county’s permit requirements!
On the stairs, I am a big fan of wood. IMHO they look better, not much different to clean, and will wear much better. Also a buyer is usually not going to say they prefer laminate, but the other way around is often more so “I much prefer wood”.
We have a very nice wood staircase which you see right when you enter the home. It is wide and with a nice landing half way up with a turn. My dad was a builder in another state, and our costs were much lower than what he would have had (from what I remember, like $6K difference, and this was 25 years ago). I believe some of the costs were purchasing the spindles and newel posts versus milling them. Also we are in an area with some specialization of tasks, and had a small crew that specifically did stairways, so they were fast and efficient. I do remember the lumber company not wanting to take material back on the ‘special order’ but we needed a few extra of one thing and not a few pieces delivered, and they did restock…I understand large quantities of over-purchase, but we were very careful.
How exciting on getting some remodeling done. We are waiting to cash flow some additional things.
The thing is I’ve already done laminated wood on the main floor a few years ago and do plan on laminating the upper floor, as well. It’d just look odd to do real wood just for the stairs in between the floors.
You can certainly stain the wood to match the laminate (unless the laminar you have is a wild zebra stripes or something like that 
).
For staircases, or anything, make sure you get the higher quality 12mm thick laminate. That makes a huge difference and is just as thick and sturdy as engineered wood floors. The thin laminate flooring is just trash
The laminated wood that I used for my main floor was from Sam’s Club, and I really like them. Very strong and very resistant to dings and scratches.
Got a floor plan from the architect, I’ve posted it here:
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/32532343@N00/24675968177/
You can compare it to the original here:
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/32532343@N00/37723449411/
Highlights:
- get rid of the spiral stairs to the balcony, and straighten out the stairs to the basement
- with the spiral stair out of the way, open up and expand the kitchen. Take out the outside door in the kitchen to allow more counter and cabinet space
- move/enlarge the bathrooms, add a bigger master closet, add first floor laundry
- roof over the atrium to create a foyer and covered front porch. Add a normal set of stairs up to the balcony, a skylight, and some closets
Comments welcome!
I love it! The stacked washer dryer is not ideal but everything else looks great. The expanded kitchen and the foyer are really wonderful. It’s good to expand both bathrooms too.
Yes
Nice!
The stacked washer and dryer seems too public.
Maybe take a new look at that space and the bathroom it backs up to.
Can things move around so the stacks are accessed
Through a door in the bathroom ?
My regular floors are old oak floor boards and the stairs are solid oak treads. I don’t think it’s normal for stairs to be identical to floors. You should be able to get a real wood that matches your laminate.
@notrichenough I’m not bothered by the laundry - it’s behind a door after all. If it had double doors facing the living room, you could have room for a small folding area or just laundry storage next to the washing machines, but I can see you’d rather have a wall for art work or whatever in the living room. I think there might be a way to rearrange bathrooms, closets and laundry so that your laundry has more useful space. But it’s all definitely a big improvement.
@notrichenough. Great new design in the former atrium space!
IMO, it is the best use of the existing space with minimal structural change$. While I don’t love stacked W/D, in this space this arrangement makes sense.
That whole space is only about 15’x12’, there’s not all that much flexibility in how you can carve that space into two bathrooms, and a closet.
It is a small laundry, and we may use it as a big closet for now, as there is a laundry in the basement. We are just trying to think ahead for when we want everything on one level.
Structurally we have some flexibility because the roof over the bedroom wing is all trusses.
If you might, for a time, use the laundry in the basement you might want to put a laundry chute in now–if you do not have one.
When we built in 2003 we plumbed for a stack in our large master closet on the first floor for possible future use…
We put a chute going into the lower level laundry room.
The townhouse we rented years ago had a laundry chute. DH misses it something awful. If we can figure out logistics of where we would run it as part of the MBA reno (and maybe expanding closet area), he’d be a really happy camper.
There really isn’t any place for a practical laundry chute - the current laundry room is directly under the kitchen.
I thought of a different arrangement last night - slide the master bath up into the space where the new laundry room would be, convert the now-extra space between the bedroom and the bath into a closet, expand the closet that bumps into the foyer to use all the extra space that is currently unused, and make the walk-in closet into a laundry room.
This puts the laundry right by the bedrooms, and gives about the same amount of closet space as before.
We’ll see what the architect says. :-?