My wife tore off the carpeting in our hallway, stairs and landing.  This was wall to wall carpeting, but after it was off we could see where there used to be a runner (on the stairs and landing).

After we sanded the landing and one stair smooth, some of the wood was darker and didn't lighten with sanding.  I'm guessing the wood darkened with exposure to light.

Does anyone know how to lighten the dark areas?  We don't really want to stain the lighter areas to match the darker areas.  I thought about either a light aniline dye or maybe mild bleach mixture.  But I still want the whole area to stain evenly.  Sanding didn't seem to have much affect, I don't know how much wood I would have to remove to get to the natural wood color.

The landing is oak and the stairs are pine if this helps.  My solution was just to re-carpet but the wife didn't like that idea very much.

Tom