Oct 25, 11:54 PM
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Thanks guys :) Well, I’m celebrating tonight! I was so very very worried about the railings- it’s probably THE most technically challenging part of the entire addition, even moreso than the kitchen or the plumbing or the HVAC, just because of the difficulty not only of design and technique, but also adding in the tweaks and the imperfections and trying to make it all fit perfectly despite no clean angles or points of reference- but when we cut and fit the last 2 pieces of railing tonight, the straight sections that go at an angle along the stairs, it all came together perfectly! I cut both pieces 2” too long, and I must have trimmed the long one 6 times on both ends trying to make it match perfectly before I was happy.
The angle of the dangle is the inverse of the square of the hypotenuse. Or something like that.
Honestly, the secret to attempting something like this is planning, planning, planning and patience. Maybe some more patience, too. The railing will be stained the same color as the stairs & newels. But first, we’ll dismantle this all tomorrow and glue & reassemble it, then once it’s up, put the rest of the screws in the newels to permanently fix them into place. (The lower 2 are loose to allow connection of the railing.) Then, probably 2-3 days of sanding and 2 days of finish.
Railing, 100% dry-fit in-place!
Two of the iron balisturs are up, too, as I wanted to check and make sure we could fit them in after-the-fact before we glued the railing in place. The upper hole is ever-so-slightly overdrilled so that it slides up into the hole 1/8” too far, then drops down into the lower hole. They’ll all get cut and glued in later. Still have to drill the ones along all the stairs. Those will be difficult…
Oh, also, Home Depot called today and our carpet is in. With any luck, we’ll be done-done with the stairs AND carpet by next weekend and moved on to trim :D
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Oct 20, 09:54 PM
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We’ve been making steady progress on the stairs- today, we finally finished the landing and got the last tread up (which we had to finish the landing before we could do). The post in the picture has a big chunk let out of it, as does the tread; fits exceptionally well, I think! It’s not fastened at this point- my wife is going to stain and varnish all the oak before we fasten the newel posts and start putting up the railing. The small circles drilled along the edge are for the iron ballisturs.
All treads complete!
We used finish screws, set into the treads with a 1/4” fornster bit. Then used a 1/4” plug cutter to cut oak plugs to fill it. Turned out extremely well- most of the screws blend in perfectly, and the rest will likely disappear once stained.
Can you see all 3 screws in this photo?
I got the first bit of railing cut, drilled, and dry-assembled, too!
First piece of railing, dry-assembled.
And, in case anyone is wondering exactly how you connect pieces of railing in an over-the-post design so the connections are absolutely invisible, it’s a real pain in the ass. Come final assembly, it will be glued with wood glue, final adjustments made, and the bolts tightened. The fancy fittings were made in china and shipped over; the railings were milled down the street from me. They’re very close, but will need some sanding to match perfectly…
Rail bolts
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Oct 13, 09:44 PM
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Got a lot done in the last few days! Here’s how it looks today. Next big hurdle is how to do the landing; gonna be tricky, but I think we have a plan. I broke out the grinder I got for christmas last year, sharpened my chisels, and cut out 3” of the nosing on the 8th tread to accept the landing newel post. Still have a bunch more work to go. This is really a PITA!
Oh, the newels in the photo are just standing there, they’re not trimmed or fastened, but they’re stained- the whole staircase will be stained like that and varnished
Almost all the treads & risers in place, along with the landing tread along the balcony.
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Oct 8, 09:09 PM
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For the stairs, Melissa assembled the return on the left side of the treads (biscuit joinery, clamped, and sanded) and painted all the risers and skirts, while I’m doing the actual measuring, cutting, trimming, shimming and glueing/nailing. Once I’m done, she’s going to put in the dowel to hide the screws, and all the sanding/painting/staining.
We ran into a number of problems with the first couple treads- I ended up having to rabbit & dado two risers in order to make them fit without sticking out too far. The real problem is that $#^$!#% stair people only stock 11.25” and 11.5” stairs, assuming homeowners are ONLY putting in code-minimum 10” run stairs regardless of proper design formula that, in my case, worked out to 11” run. Interestingly enough, code requires 11” minimum for commercial applications, but we couldn’t find ANY treads designed for that. (Code requires 10” stairs to have a .75-1.5” nosing; 11” stairs don’t require any nosing) Needless to say, 11.25” treads on an 11” wide staircase gives a .25” nosing look rather dumb. Home Depot’s treads were 11.5” wide, giving a half-inch nosing that still looks dumb, but was the best we could do. Unfortunately, that doesn’t give much room for error…
So, here’s where are are tonight. The skirts are up along the wall, all the treads are assembled, and most are sanded and ready for final trim & install. We have 3 completely installed, waiting for final finishing:
Steps 14, 15 & 16, glued and screwed in place.
The rest of the railing parts arrived today, too, and a gal from Home Depot came to measure for carpet. We also noted an error where Home Depot overcharged us $95 for board we didn’t buy- the manager said they’ll check store cameras and call us back. What a pain in the ass…
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Oct 6, 10:43 AM
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I was hoping the local stair supplier here would price-match, but, alas, they don’t. So I ordered all the railing fittings online, hit home depot for a bunch, lowes for a couple more things and dave’s cabinets for the newels, straight pieces of railing, and trim. Ordered carpet, too! We’ve got everything in-hand now except the online order (shipped thursday) and 45 single-twist iron balisturs, as home depot can never keep their iron balisters in stock- they had probably 200 double-baskets, but we damned-near cleaned them out of single baskets and double twists, heh.
$930 worth of 16’ trim & stair parts is a stressful half-hour drive… We had to stop twice to keep from strewing trim all over the highway.
We selected 7.25” base molding and 3.5” Florence molding for the doors and windows, and a light beige low-pile carpet for the living room, hall and guest bedroom.
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