Stairs has a large square gap from the removal of an old 3 inch water pipe

[bd420]

We recently had our old galvanized pipes removed and re-routed from a very old house, which has resulted in a 3.5 inch square thru a stair near an interior wall. The grain of the wood stairs (painted, non carpeted) will be hard to match, so this will most likely always look like a repair, but anything is better than seeing down thru this hole to the basement floor :-). Initial thoughts are to hammer a similar sized wood block and support the back (underside of the stairwell, ie, not noticeable) with thinner wood. Then paint over to match.

Any other ideas?

Also, the same removal project left a more sizeable rounder hole in the side paneling next to the steps (inner wall I spoke of earlier). I'm not sure I'll ever find this old wood paneling anywhere (would be nice if there was an extra piece in the garage loft), and it's not painted, but once again, anything is better than walking down to the basement and gazing into the laundry room on the way down, lol.

Thanks much!

bd

[Goedjn]

If you can get to the underside of the afflicted step, screw and glue a plank the full width between stringers, and then insert a plug from the top to fill the hole.

If you can't use a chisel to bevel the edges, and then cut your plug to match that.

For the hole in the panelling, stick a low-voltage LED foot-light in there, and pretend it's a safety feature.