Nearing the finish line

We knocked out a bunch of little projects last weekend and today. The last little bit of trim is done along with the stair railings needed for code (and safety). I also got the kitchen cabinet crown molding up. The house got a much needed cleaning today too. There's still a lot of caulking and puttying of holes, but we are one weekend away from the last of the painting. Maybe 2-3 more weekends left of inside work total. Then it's clean and polish everything and it'll be ready to sell!

Upstairs railing

Last bit of trim. Ready for paint.

Downstairs railing

Clean kitchen with new crown molding on top. 

One less death trap

We are checking off the remaining projects pretty quickly. Despite the large safety factor of this one it got sent to the bottom of the list. Every time we had a guest stay at our house we were always worried somebody would stumble off the ledge in the dark. Luckily it never happened. All we need to do is add a continuous rail on the other wall for code and we will be ready to call for our final inspections. Can't wait to get everything painted too. It's going to look really sharp. 

Getting things ready for attaching. I used a bracket kit plus made a block to slip the newel post over for added stiffness.

Both posts attached and laying out the spindle spacing. I was nervous I'd make a mistake and have to replace some flooring.

Point of no return. 

Of course it fits!

Not too shabby looking. Who's painting?

 

Stairs done... almost

Today was a vacation day so the next project in line was to finish trimming out the bottom stairwell. We decided to do a wainscoting effect on the bottom half of the railing. Once it's all painted glossy white it should give it a richer look and match some of the other elements in the living room area like the barn doors and the mudroom built ins. I didn't finish running the floor trim to the banister because I may need to brace it more on the one side. The bottom piece that looks like a mistake is not. It's just a place holder to bump out the floor trim to match the wainscoting. That gap will get covered up with floor trim. I also finished off that last stair step. There were a bunch of pieces to fit together to make it all look like it was meant to be there. It's not how I would have done it if we replaced the entire stairwell, but it's a nice upgrade to the original 1954 staircase. Next weekend we'll do the upstairs banisters and hopefully the kitchen cabinet crown molding.

If you look at where the spindles line up with the wainscoting you'll notice that the two ends line up with the last banisters on each end and the middle spindle is exactly in line with the middle trim. I've done more measuring and double checking this weekend than I have in a long time!

Hard to see, but I drew in a rough sketch of the design first. 

Couple of pieces up. 

See? It all fits together!

Bottom stair torn out. The left and right stringers needed to get extended to make it all fit better. 

You can see the stringer extensions and the riser all cut from 5/4 stock. 

Still need some trim on the sides, but mostly done. Much better than it was!

All done! Don't mind that little gap at the bottom, trust me. 

I dug up some old photos for a great before and after series of the stairwell and what used to be two small bedrooms, but is now our flex room plus mudroom.

View of the old two bedrooms. 

During demo. 

After demo and walls opened up. 

Reconfigured to current day. Ignore the chop saw and various tools on the floor!

Safety First

This safety fix goes from start to finish in 4 pictures, but in reality it took me about 5-6 hours. The angle of the stairs made it a real pain in the ass. By code you can't have more than 4" between openings, but I wanted slightly less to have more spindles. Luckily I found an online tool that helped me get most of the measurements and then from there I could do a little trial and error to get the perfect fit. Making sure things were level was a little tricky so some spindles required 4 or 5 cuts to get it perfect. Somehow I managed to get all the little fillets between the spindles cut on the first shot every time without cutting my fingers off. 

The upstairs banister should be a lot easier since it's all the same level. We still need a handrail on the other side to make the stairs code compliant, but that's an easy fix. 

Stair cap I made out of 5/4 stock. 

Shoe rail installed and I realized that the spindles weren't going to be so easy. 

BOOM! Spindles and handrail look perfect.

Fillets snug between the spindles top and bottom.

Two steps forward

Blog appearance notwithstanding, we're still here and making (slow) progress on a number of small things.  After getting out of the DIY habit over the holidays, we're easing back into the weekend and evening work schedule.  Once we pulled the stairs out, we obviously had to put the new ones in, which we did two at a time with liberal application of construction glue - there should be no squeaks on these stairs!  We cut each bamboo step and left it weighed down for 24 hours before moving onto the next pair so it took about a week to get them all done.  Then we started working on the banister post and railings...but when we started that, Brian realized that the drywall on the stairs was, despite being new, just a tad bit too crooked to look good so he straightened it out with new corner bead and compound.  Now we're ready to use the long weekend to get back to work!

Starting the stair installation - two new steps in place, waiting for the glue to dry

Stairs installed!  Still need trim, caulk, paint, etc but much improved

Starting banister installation - after cleaning up the house for the holidays,
we're back to living in a construction zone again

Watch Your Step

We started tackling one of the last remaining big jobs in the house this weekend - refinishing the steps from the first floor to the second floor.  These were in place when we bought the house, although they previously led to a glorified attic rather than a proper second floor.  And although it was nice to have a fixed staircase already in place, they definitely needed some work to match the rest of the now-renovated house.  So, we started by pulling off the old treads, which will be replaced with bamboo treads when we're done, and sanding down and cleaning up the backboards in order to paint them white.  We also added construction adhesive and some additional nails to make sure the stairs don't squeak when it's finished.  When it's done, we'll have white trim and stair backs and new bamboo treads.  It should be a big improvement - but in the meantime, we have to be careful walking up and down!

Old stairs - not looking too good

Pulling off the old treads

Almost all off...

First coat of paint

Second coat - looking better

Careful on the stairs - lots of room to fall in!

Trimming and Decorating the Garage

Some people spend the holiday season trimming a tree and decorating the house...we spent the last couple of weeks and holiday break working on our garage!  It was time well spent, though, as in just a few weekends, we insulated and drywalled the first floor of the garage, have one coat of mud and tape on about half the garage, and reinstalled all of our shelves and storage again.  The heaters have been working really well too - they easily raise the temperature by about 20 degrees in an hour or two, which makes a big difference when it's as cold as it's been outside.  Back to indoor projects next but we'll enjoy using the garage for the rest of the winter!

In progress - stairwell door installed, most drywall up, still very disorganized!

First coat of mud and tape

Large wall shelf and overhead shelves reinstalled - finally some organization!

Some contractors bags ready for next garbage pick-up but otherwise cleaned up

Overhead shelves, full of spare materials out of the way!