Hello,
I recently had my floors replaced (white oak) and the staircase, which is also white oak but not very good quality, sanded and stained the same color (driftwood, pretty light but not natural). My floor guy then stained my stair rail black and in the process stained the stair treads that are under the rail. He sanded them a bit to try to fix but they've always bothered me because there are grey-black pools that look dirty and dingy, especially compared to the nice new floor. I've now decided to put a stair runner on the stairs (for my kids and dog) but before I do i want to fix the stair treads that will be exposed. I've hand sanded most of the grey black stains away (can't use a sander because of the spindles) and now the wood is naked in some spots and looks very worn and bare and basically just dead. I am wondering if my best bet is to stain the treads the same minwax driftwood (I've never stained before but i want to do it myself since it's such a small area and I want to keep costs down if possible) or if I might be able to get away with using a product like Rejuvenate, which I've heard great things about and is supposed to be very easy to use. If the stairs aren't a perfect match for the floor it's okay. An approximation is fine. On the second floor we have natural, strip white oak that doesn't look like the first floor either.

Thanks so much for helping this novice wanna be floor girl! And if you think this is a big project (I'm fairly handy with a paint brush and pretty neat) that i shouldn't take on I'd like to hear that too! Don't want to end up making everything look worse.

Thanks again!