A long climb

After knocking out a bunch of smaller tasks, we turned back to one of the last major projects in the house - the stairwell.  The stairs seemed like a good idea at the time we were building them - a version of a U shaped staircase with two landings per level (not one, as is more common).  And the framing itself went moderately well, although a few measurement tweaks had to be made on the fly.  But then it came time to start the finish work - adding the stair treads, the stair backings, the trim pieces, the posts, the rails...and the enormity of the task became clear.  This was no weekend project.

After much contemplation and more than a couple of false starts, we've not only made a lot of progress but the stairs are nearly done.  And, most excitingly, we had our final inspection on the house a few weeks ago and passed!  Everything, including the stairs, checked out to code and now our permits are officially closed out.  There's still some trim and a fair amount of painting to be done but the summer is looking like it may be a little more relaxed (at last).  But first, an extremely long post to document this project.  We're still not quite finished yet - there will be more trim and then paint on everything, but this should get us caught up for now.  And at the end - more puppy pictures!

Stair treads in place, makeshift 2x4 rails that have been in place for...let's just say a fair amount amount of time (it's been a very long time).  Plus a very important and stylish cardboard puppy guard to keep little ones from running off the edge of the floor and plunging to the basement below

Starting to trim out the side wall with wainscoting for an accent

Dryfitting the posts and getting set up for the rails.  We used a piece of yuca board to help figure out the height and slope of the rails so we could determine the correct height of the posts.  The board was a great trick and made it easier but...this was not easy even with the board.  A serious downside of this stair design is that there are many individual stair runs, each of which had to be measured for each post.  Not for the faint, or impatient, of heart

Getting ready to cut the posts.  We had planned to custom build the posts but found these available at a relatively nearby woodshop.  Buying them was a great decision as it saved some time on an already incredibly time consuming project

Getting the post into place after cutting the bottom to fit and checking that the rail will hit in the right spot

Moving to the second floor (and looking down), we needed to get the floor trim pieces into place on the edge of the floor before putting the posts and rails in.  A lot of blue tape died for this cause.

And now getting the anchors for the posts into place

An army of posts in place

Starting to custom stain the now cut oak handrails.  We used the same stain we've used elsewhere in the house, a mix of Kona and Walnut

Installing the handrails

More handrails

Yep, more handrails

Setting up a jig to cut the balusters

Working on install

Getting everything set on, yes, another run (so many runs)

And now moving to the rest of the trim work - setting up custom ripped pieces to box out the columns

Working on trimming out the ceiling - getting lots of use out of the Starrett angle finder on this project

And back to the columns - this does not look finished yet

Getting the trim into place

Now that looks good!

But still not done yet - time to get back to trimming out the walls

More detail

And yet more detail - on both the underside of the stairs and the stair walls behind it

As Brian has been hard at work, I've been hard at play with these foster puppies!

This is Sadie, a rottie mix, who was so cuddly that she may have convinced us to let her sleep on the bed.  I'm a softie.

Puppy playtime

And then we had this pair of siblings - Marley (on the left) and Charlie (on the right).  These were our youngest puppies yet at seven weeks and they were sweethearts, even if rather babyish.   

Look at these adorable faces!  Makes getting up several times a night a lot easier when it's to care for this level of cuteness.  Although I was still delighted to sleep through the night once they were adopted