Sawdust on the Floor

When we moved into our home way back in 1978, our home was like every other home built in that era, lots of painted woodwork and tons of particle board.  I mean every surface that wasn’t covered by sheet rock, was covered by that bane to every real woodworker, particle board.  As time and money permitted, we removed and replaced all of the painted woodwork, and through a series of home improvements, we managed to replace all of the particle board. 

Even after gutting the house of the partial board, one thing still drove me crazy. That one thing was the staircase to our second floor.  The open stairway had a black wrought iron railing, bolted down to a piece of painted particle board.  I just couldn’t stand it, so I made an attempt to upgrade it.  I went to the big Orange DIY store and bought a newel post and stair railing parts.  After several days of scratching my head and uttering expressions that would make a sailor blush, I managed to get the new stair rail and post installed. And man was I proud of my workmanship.  It really looked great; well some of the joints weren’t perfect, but it really looked much nicer then the original setup. 

And the stair way stayed that way for some time.  That is until my oldest grandson decided to see if he could really slide down the railing. He survived, but the stair rail didn’t.  Ok, he barely survived, his Mom and he had some intense one on one time.  The railing was now very loose, and some of the spindles were a little looser than before the ill fated sliding incident. That meant another upgrade.  I have a feeling that we would have upgraded the stair case, even if our grandson hadn’t taken his ride. But I didn’t tell him that, I think it would have diminished any lesson he learned from his one on one with Mom.   

The reason for my feelings were that as you sat in our living room, and looked toward the kitchen your eyes would pass over the stair case and its newel post. And no matter how you looked at it, something was just wrong.  After the kitchen upgrade, cabinets are a combination of Arts and Craft, and Mission styling,  While the stair case and newel post had a very heavy early American influence.  The two areas also were stained in completely different tones; the kitchen area had a reddish tint, while the stair case had more of a blond tone. A total nightmare to me as a woodworker and my wife as the designer. 

So I had to fix that. After looking at a multitude of catalogs and on line stores, we found that we couldn’t find anything that was either within our budget or would fit into the over all look of the entire home’s designs.  That left only one option, I took the entire staircase apart, newel post, railing and spindles and started over again. 

Our idea for the newel post and the railing and spindles now were going to have a more art & craft influence, then its predecessor. The newel post would be stained dark, with a reddish tint to more match the kitchen colorization. With that concept in mind, we took a real serious look at the stairs that sat next to the future new newel post and rail. 

The builder did us no favors with his construction methods for the stairs,  The only good thing I can say about them is that they were solid, other than that the only one could say about them is they were utilitarian.  They appeared to be site build, the stringers were made of common 2×12 lumber.  They were attached to the house framing with 16 p common nails. The treads and risers were also common lumber, there was a bull nose that had been nailed to the treads. Originally, the stairs had been carpeted, so I guess he (the Builder) didn’t worry too much about appearance.  But  since we wanted a more modern appearance , we knew that we had to do something about the stairs. 

After some discussion and a lot more unsavory words about the builder, we decided to replace the stairs.  That is we would replace the risers and treads.  The stringer would be left in place.  But because we had to be able to still move up and down the stair case, I devised a method to replace the risers  and treads, one step at a time. But more on that later, I promise. 

So just so you understand where we are at, for several reasons we decided to replace our existing, and somewhat loose newel post and rail.  That lead to a decision to also replace the stair risers and treads at the same time.  And that lead to another decision. 

All three of our upstairs bedrooms have solid hardwood flooring, and the bathroom is covered with ceramic tile,  leaving only the hallway carpeted.  As we had completed each of the bedrooms, we also commented on how nice it would look if the hall way was also covered in hardwood, instead of that ugly carpet.  And since we were at it, God I really hate that expression, we decided to go ahead and pull up the carpet and replace it with hardwood. 

So the newel post and rail were put on hold, pending the completion of the stair risers and treads, which were put on hold for the completion of the hardwood installation in the upstairs hall way.  While it may sound strange, doing the hall way first makes perfectly good sense.  We wanted the final height of the  hardwood floor to be even with the top riser of the stairs.  Anything difference in height would not only be unsightly, but it would be downright unsafe. I know I could calculate the height, and work from there, but the more one depends on calculations, the more opportunity there is for error. So this is the path we decided to proceed. 

Over the next several posts I plan to detail what went into all three phases of this upgrade. While the arts and craft influences we used may not fit into your household, the building and woodworking concepts remain the same. So please join us as we work our way though these projects.

Related posts:

1. Woodworking Project – Building a Bed Headboard Part 3
2. Woodworking Project – Building a Bed Headboard Part 1
3. Woodworking Project – Building a Bed Headboard Part 4