Stairway to Heaven?
The stairs. Oh, what can I say about the stairs….well first, I can say that building stairs is a lot harder than it seems! Per my last post, we had a bit more than a miscommunication about the stairs with our framers. Our bid said they’d install the stairs, but we didn’t have any idea that meant they’d install pre-fabricated stairs. I made many calls to companies that make stair stringers and do you think I could get even one call or email back? Nope! Guess we’re on our own!
To start, you apparently have to find very long pieces of the heaviest wood you’ve ever lifted, then somehow hoist it up to your second story. Ummm, I will admit that I’m not incredibly strong, so Kris did most of the heavy lifting! He tied a rope around one end of the stringer, then ran outside around the house, jumped up on the deck, ran to the top of the stairs then pulled really hard while I pushed from the bottom! Once we did some measuring, we’d take it down, make some tweaks and start the entire process again.
Stringer #1 went in surprisingly well, and now we have a stencil! Pull that stringer down one last time, then copy it three more times. We’re on a roll…..not! Stringer #2 went up and it didn’t seem to fit quite like the first. Stringer #3 fit even worse. How is this possible??? They’re identical! After WAY too many times lifting those stringers up and down, we finally realized the header at the top of the stairs was just slightly off. Oof! That’s not good. Now there was no other option but to customize each stringer. I’m sure eventually we’ll get a lucky break on this house, but today isn’t that day!
After some blood, sweat, a few tears, and many times running around the house, all four stringers were up and as level as we could possibly get them. Kris got right to work on the stair treads which went in a lot easier than the stringers! In the end, we had 19 steps in total. No more running around the house or hopping up and down off the deck. We officially have a 2-story home! Check out the stair building pics here!
