What to Do When Your Flooring Brand Doesn't Make a Stair Nose
Why Many Flooring Brands Skip Stair Noses
Flooring manufacturers focus on making planks. Trim and transition pieces are often treated as secondary products, and stair noses in particular are expensive to produce for every color. Private-label brands sold at big-box retailers (like Home Decorators Collection, Stainmaster, and Smartcore) rarely have coordinating stair accessories because they are produced under contract and not designed as full-system products.
Even name brands like Lifeproof and NuCore carry only a fraction of their color library in stair nose form at retail.
Option 1: Try a Generic Match
Some retailers carry generic stair noses in neutral colors (light beige, medium oak, dark walnut) that may come close to your floor. This works best if your floor is one of those generic tones. For distinctive colors — particularly gray-toned, wire-brushed, or deeply colored LVP — a generic match rarely works.
Option 2: Leave the Stairs Carpeted
If you're replacing flooring but not the stairs, some homeowners choose to leave the staircase carpeted. This is a valid approach, but it creates a visual break between your new LVP and the carpeted stairs that many homeowners find unsatisfying.
Option 3: Order a Custom-Matched Stair Nose
This is the best solution for most homeowners. Companies like FloorMatch specialize in producing stair noses that are color-matched to specific LVP products. Here's how the process works:
- Find your flooring's SKU. It's on the back of a plank or your original receipt.
- Submit a custom order. Provide your brand, color name, and SKU.
- Receive your matched stair nose. Ships to your door in 7-14 business days.
What If You Can't Find Your SKU?
If you no longer have the packaging and the SKU isn't visible on your planks, try: - Looking up your color name on the retailer's website - Checking your credit card statements for a purchase date and cross-referencing with your Home Depot or Lowe's account - Mailing us a 6" plank section so we can attempt a visual match
Products Mentioned in This Article
Related Articles
Custom LVP Stair Nosing: How to Get a Perfect Match for Any Floor
Retail stores almost never stock matching stair noses for every LVP color. Here's why, and how custom stair nosing solves the problem.
Can I Send You My Flooring to Make a Matching Stair Nose?
In some cases, yes — you can mail us a section of your flooring and we'll do our best to color-match it. Here's how the process works.
How to Find a Matching Stair Nose for Lifeproof LVP Flooring
Lifeproof is one of the best-selling LVP brands at Home Depot, but finding a matching stair nose is a common frustration. Here's how to solve it.