New Stairs - Day 2

This is really happening!

Now you all know, by now, that I am a DIY supporter.  If you can reuse something that just needs to be spruced up, why would you throw it out, destroy it, and replace it?  But there are things over the years that SPF and I have decided not to do.  We are not plumbers, and we respect the craft and have a preferred craftsman now.  (His name is Cal.)  We are not electricians, and we respect that craft and craftswoman.  (Her name is Ms. Sparky.  Not really, but that's what she goes by!)  We also now realize, with loads of respect and great humility, that we are not stair people.

These guys are incredible.  In every way possible.  Knowledgeable, funny, hard working, honest, and really, really good.

 Just as a starting point, let me remind you what our stairs look like.  Correction, looked like.

Things started off innocently enough.  They checked to see how things were fixed to the subfloor by pulling up a bit of the carpeting.

By the time I can back to check on progress, the banister had been removed completely.  As had this little stack of carpet pads from the treads and the entire run of carpet from landing to landing.

 Within an hour, this was the state of the stairs.  Terrifying, but really, really cool.

No more inner bannister, either.  So crazy!

 This is our new entry way.  Perilous, but it really opens up the space!

Where the walls connected with the header rail.  This one is by the hallway . . .

 this one by the front door . . .

and this one at the bottom of the rail by the front door.  This one is my favorite because you can still see the fleur de lis imprint in the wall.  :)

But when you remove the outer layers, the demons come out of the woodwork.  Welcome to the section of the blog where the project suddenly blooms and the phrase "I can't believe they did it this way!" makes my skin start to tingle.

Do you see that giant crack through the riser?

 Here's a close-up.

And see this great crack through the tread support.  That's right, support.  Meaning this cracked piece of 2x4 was holding the weight of the stairs.  All of them.  And each tread was on a beauty just like this.  A tiny scrap of 2x4 stuck into the stringer with a few nails.  This is not how you do this.  Maybe, 40 years ago, this was considered ok, but now, not so much.

Here's another riser cracked at the nail.  The reason for this is that the 2x4 behind it that is theoretically supporting the weight of the stair is broken and separating from the stair itself.  Because of this, the riser is taking a good deal of the weight of the stair (and the people walking on the stairs) and the whole thing is about to collapse.

Nearly literally.  This stair is cracked in half.  We knew it was 'wobbly' but it just sort of creaked and rocked when you walked on it.  It did that because it was physically snapped in half.  The only reason it didn't fall right off was the fact that carpet encapsulated it, until yesterday morning, and was holding it in place.  So now, it is really screwed up.  There are four more like this one - actually cracked - and three more that are visibly weak.  But out of 12 stairs, that is way too many for comfort, and you have to imagine that all the treads are in the same downward spiral.

Ah, yes, you just did the math, didn't you?  Each tread is on one of these and each tread is compromised because of it.  The treads are no good, so they need to be replaced.  And the 2x4s holding them are downright unsafe, so they need to be replaced.

The poor stair guy, Mike, kept apologizing for having discovered the issues.  Where I wish he hadn't, I wish he hadn't because they WEREN'T THERE, not because he didn't catch them.  Because they are there, I want him to catch them and fix them.  I want this project to be solid and long lasting.  The tile guy found some issues and resolved them.  The stairs, though larger in scope, deserve the same consideration.

He talked to his boss.  He asked me to call his boss, too, so we would all be on the same page (even though I told him I trusted him and we wanted to do the project correctly.)  The boss explained the same thing that Mike had explained (in great detail, showing me the actual damage that I have shown you here in pictures.)  No part of me felt as though I was being swindled or tricked, as it was very evident the stairs are broken.  We agreed to do them correctly.

That, however, caused some new problems.  We originally had expected that the stair demo and prep would take a day.  (This was an estimate from the original stair quote based on what we could see during the actual measuring process.)  The new problems created a need for two guys to work on the stairs for two additional days, pushing the whole project back.  When I heard that, my financial senses started to panic.  For a job that was originally designed to be one worker for a little over half a day at the front end and one and a half days on the back end, adding two days, logically, would be an additional 40% cost, right?  And I know that the original quote included materials and labor, but this was new materials and labor that wasn't included in the original quote.  That's a big expense.  But no, these guys are awesome, and despite the huge increase in labor and the not terrible but not insignificant expense in materials to create a brand new staircase, they agreed to do it for only an additional 10% cost.

Done.

So we're getting a completely rebuilt staircase, with the exception of the stringers, which were in good shape.  Silver lining, eh?