New Stairs - Day 3

It's amazing what professionals can do.  Especially when they bring a friend.

Day 2 was alarming, but ultimately reassuring because we felt that the guy working on our stairs, Mike, did know code and good construction techniques and was going to do right by us.  On Day 2, Mike brought along Travis.  Mike is great, and Travis is astounding.  This guy is a problem solving, hard working, crafty, clever, funny guy.  And so nice.  Like really, I would love to be friends with this guy.  He's the type of guy you would always invite to your barbeque.

And the work is incredible.

So this is the first thing I saw after they arrived.  They just popped in and dropped off the new fasteners.  (I didn't stage these, by the way.  They were left in this perfect, catalog orientation.  Sweet.)

The next time I came back, my stairs were gone.  Just . . . gone.  No more stairs.  I asked them if they would like a step stool and they both laughed.  Although they then both told me stories about when they first started doing stairs and how they would go home after a day at the job and couldn't move their calves, thighs, or butts for more than a shuffle.  Yeah, that's why you should use the step stool!  They, however, no longer need it.  They were like parkour masters.  Like little Capuchins in and out of the space.  I did not go down.  I'm less Capuchin and more hippo these days.

 Lots of debris, but well maintained.

Look at these!  New treads!  I know they just look like wood pieces, and I get that, but they are new treads.  Beautiful, clean, wood smelling new treads that aren't cracked down the middle, rotten, and smelling of old gym clothes from a forgotten 1970's locker.

And once installed - brilliant!  SOOOO solid and functional and pretty.  I'm almost of a mind to use these as the finished product.

Almost.

SPF grabbed this shot for me.  You can see the sturdiness of the new brackets with this shot and how very well supported the new staircase is going to be.  So.  Cool.

And here is the nearly complete "first rake" of the stairs.  (I'm learning lingo.  It's hard not to when they are talking about it in what seems like code all day.  Rakes, risers, treads, stringers, aprons, skirts.  Yep.  I can talk the talk.

I grabbed this shot before they started demoing the first rake.  A nice comparison between the old and the new, I think.  Suddenly it isn't just that the old treads are cracked and broken and poorly supported, but they are also worn and weary and musty and dank.  This was a good, and completely affordable, solution.  I'm thrilled.

The second rake after demo.  That beam beneath the stairs is there solely to tack the drywall in underneath.  That drywall is the ceiling of my son's closet.  There were lots of jokes about watching for missteps in case they would put a foot through the drywall and land on the kids' dresser.  My response was always a hearty, but nervous, fake laugh and a "heh, heh, yeah, let's avoid that!"  There were several times I thought about taking my chances and jumping down to the landing to move their special "new baby" artwork and blocks and their piggy banks, but nothing befell them.  Actually, if I had attempted it, I'm sure I'd be the one falling through the ceiling.

 The nearly completed second rake.

Another one that SPF was able to grab.  I, again, didn't risk it.  But he was jealous of the workers and their . . . working.  He's always talked about wanting a business where the final product is a tangible good.  There is something a little unsatisfying for him to be constructing only reports, and delivering only figures and numbers.  So, he took whatever chance he could to jump around the work site while the guys were out cutting more treads or taking a smoke break.

Yeah, so those are electrical cables.  We aren't sure where they lead, but everyone stayed clear of them.  I'm sure they are used and I'm sure they are live.  I'm also sure they could have been better installed in the first place, but given where they were, there really wasn't anything that we could do to adjust them now.  Sigh.

Here is where things got really exciting.  That thing he is using (this would be Travis) is called a jamb saw.  It's used for cutting door jambs to get flooring under them and it can be completely flush with the ground and still cut.  That thing he's cutting into is the old, rough cut stringer.  Now the stringer's are staying, as they had no damage and were installed correctly to support the weight, but we have decided to have a more open staircase, so both stringers on either side of the stairs, on both rakes of the stairs, are being cut away to reveal a nice, clean stair edge.

Once he was finished, the wall looked like this.  Don't worry, it isn't going to stay that way and we don't now have a ton of drywall repair to do.  Just be patient.  This will get resolved tomorrow.

For the time being, however, I had to block these cavities with toy boxes and children's books so that the cats wouldn't get into, and then not be able to get out of, the wall and the cavity beneath the stairs.

The second rake wasn't completed by the end of the day, but it was ready for cutting.

They have already marked where the cuts are going to go for the second rake and that will happen in the morning of Day 4.  Things are really moving along.