Rugs, Carpets and Carpeting - nose on stairs to square.

my stairs have 2x8 treads. is there something to round off the edges to make the carpet have a nice smooth transition? thanks mike

You can round them off with a router, but why? Once the carpet is on, they'll look fine. There are basically two types of steps, wrapped nose and waterfall. Waterfall is where the carpet goes across the tread and falls straight down, like water falling over the edge, hens the term, waterfall. This sort of step has no nose built onto it and the leading edge of the tread is installed flush with the top of the riser. A wrapped nose step is built with the tread installed protruding out past the top of the riser some. Some places have a required maximum distance or depth the nose can be. I like to see them no shallower than an inch and a quarter, but found one place the builders weren't allowed to go more than an inch and an eighth. I've done them where the nose was closer to an inch and a half to two inches and that much makes me nervous of the nose breaking off over time. In any case, this sort of step has the carpet go across the tread, wrap around the nose and back into the riser, and drops straight down the riser. Of the two, I like the wrapped nose the best. It gives the step a nice rich look. I've heard folks claim the square edge of the step will cut the carpet over time and, back when dimensional lumber actually had a square edge, carpet was made with jute backing, and pads weren't as dense as now, that was true. But todays lumber no longer comes with a true square edge and I haven't seen a step do that to carpet in years. A lazy installer will waterfall a wrapped nose step so, if you aren't doing them yourself, make sure yours doesn't do that if you have this sort of step.