New Stairs - Day 9

Otherwise known as the last and final day of the stair project!  Things are massively coming together in the house.  So much progress and so many completed projects that seemed like dreams or impossibilities.  (Too soon?)

Earnest arrived bright and early this morning (so early, in fact, that he got to meet the boys before we had left for day care.  All the way to school, CNF kept asking me "Where's Earnest?")  At any rate, he got right to work.  He had already masked most of the stairs before he left yesterday, and finished up masking the stained parts that needed the flip masking.  Then he started priming and painting.  By the time I had dropped the boys off and come home, it was done nearly done.  He did a little more work with the painting, but it was all caulk and finishing touches nearly the moment I got home.

After the paint was dry enough (he had some really nice equipment and paint sprayers, so things moved quickly) he removed the masking and caulked the seams.  And he was just as cool as Mike and Travis and he told SPF what he was doing when he asked.  SPF had been caulking recently to close up some holes and seams between our walls and the neighbors (it's a condo, so we have shared walls) and had been having difficulty.  After watching Earnest effortlessly caulk with precision and speed, he asked for some pointers.  Earnest didn't stop giving them once asked.  He kept calling him over, saying, "here's how I do this type of work," or, "when I have an issue with this type of gap I fill it like this."  He was fantastic and open and also humble.  When I told him how beautiful it was, he said, "Yeah, that's a great color of stain," as though I had somehow picked it and was responsible.  I mean, yeah, I helped pick the wood and the stain was based on that, but it was the way he said it that made it seem so tremendously humble.  Like it wasn't him, it was just the color that made it so great.

But boy howdy does it look amazing when done.

And now comes the fun part.  The last bit of this amazing puzzle.

THE BALUSTERS!

I couldn't resist this image, with all of the footings ready for the baluster posts.  But I had so much work to do I didn't get any images of Travis installing them.  Just the amazing work itself.

The pattern I researched and found a 4 baluster repeat that I really liked.  Simple with a bit of flare and elegance.  Travis then determined how best to start and end each section of balusters so that the pattern would be best utilized.

He's really, really good at his job.

Double twist, single twist, basket, single twist, back to double twist.  Repeat.

I'm already infatuated with the baskets.

And with the way they run down the stairs.

And with the footings.  I haven't even seen them for a full day yet and I love them so much!  It's an entirely different house.

New Stairs - Day 8

This happened mostly in my absence while I was teaching, but I think it's pretty obvious from the previous blogs where we started and where we are now.  Such amazing work!  The finisher started today.  A lovely man named Earnest who matched the stain color of the floor and went to work getting everything finalized.

He's very precise with his prep, making sure that everything was masked fully and carefully.  (I imagine that comes from years of experience, where you understand the real value of preparation.)  And the result is a lot of prepped wood that allows for fast work in the actual staining process.

Right up to the walls.

And around the newels.

And down the beautiful rails.

We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

He stained the new piece of custom nosing and although it will never match perfectly, it is pretty darn close. 

As are the rest of the pieces.  Now because of the need to stain the custom nosing piece, Earnest has to do something called flip masking, meaning that while the nosing has to be revealed for the staining process, it has to be covered for the white painting process, which is the next step.  So, alas, yet another day has been added to the schedule.  One that we knew about, but Earnest did not.  Luckily, he was able to come two days in a row (even after he was already one day late due to an illness.)  So, the party progresses!  Fabulous day!

New Stairs - Day 7

I was so happy with having actual wood on the stairs instead of particle board that I sort of dismissed the impact that the railings would have.  Not because I was somehow immune to the dangers after nearly a month of having no banister, but just because I thought that they would be nice but not so different from what I was used to.  I can't understand why I would think that.

In fact, when the process started I was a little sad to see the wood being drilled and heavy duty bolts being stuck into it.  "We just got it in!," was my instinctual reaction.  "Do you have to?"  Well, yeah, he sort of has to.  But it was still something of a painful moment.

When I next checked in, he had removed part of the wall to add a cross beam between the existing studs to anchor the new rail into.  A light bulb went off in my head as to why the previous rail had been so wobbly.  It wasn't actually anchored to a stud.  Just to wall.  Really?  (I keep thinking about all of the times I leaned on it to open the window because my arms are too short to reach without leaning over on my waist.  Yikes!)

He put it back together, though without drywall patching (not a problem, just something we will have to deal with in hopefully the near future.)  And now this rail is solidly attached to our house.

And to our new floor.  I kind of like this image.  It looks like some sort of modern art piece that we are displaying in our living room.

Full of craftsman details.  We got this rail from our friends who moved to Sweden.  I think it looks really nice.

And, true to form, Travis made absolutely sure that these puppies aren't going anywhere.  They are really secured.  Even standing by themselves they are solid posts.  (Not that I tried to kick them down or anything.)

Being as precise a guy as he is, he also taped out and measured (with a three dimensional laser level, which was pretty cool) where all of our balusters will go.  These were marked on the ground on the painters tape and we were given strict instructions not to move the tape.  Honestly we never would have, but it somehow became a lot more tempting when he told us not to!

And the lovely return of the rail into hallway wall.

The baluster markings on the steps.  Now I start to feel a little more excited.  Things are really coming together and they look cool.

And I love finishing touches.  He just whipped this up while he was outside.  With tools he brought in a trailer and set up outside our garage.  And it is astoundingly beautiful.  I had to stop myself from running my hand over and over and over it.  I didn't want all my hand oil to get it dirty.

Then he brings in the newel caps.  I knew we were getting them, but I didn't really know what we were in for.  They are so pretty.  Little rooftops on our fabulous new banister.  And he milled these at the shop before he came to our place.  I was a little worries that we shouldn't have had just square newels, that we should have made a fancier choice, but at the end of the day I couldn't be happier.  I love the newel caps.  Even though the one at the base of the second run of stairs keeps cutting my arm on the same place.  (I am just not used to them yet.  Give me a break, though, we haven't had rails for a month!)

Here's another view.  Just because.  What I should've done was get a picture of him drilling the baluster holes.  To get them at the right angle he flipped this upside down laid it on the stairs to that he could reproduce the pitch of the run.  Of course, he did!  But it's not something I would have ever thought of.  Not that I am planning on going into stair construction, by any stretch.

And the beautiful, but deadly, newel at the landing.  So pretty.

And the rail on the wall!  Before we had that awkward rail bend, but this way we have two elegant rails - one down the second run, and one on the wall.  They are fantastic.

New Stairs - Day 6

This was a fun day.  This is the day that the "impossible" stairs were created.  This is the day that we were vindicated in asking the stair company to install the stairs because the flooring guys were clearly incompetent.

I started the day off grabbing some extra images of the previous work.  The beautiful work that Travis did laying the stairs.  You can't see it here, but he even managed to maintain the varied length pattern of the wood flooring in the stair treads.  It's really great work.

But this little beauty made our hassle worth while.  You see how the tread wraps around that edge and returns back into it?  That's how it is supposed to be.  That is what the other guy said was impossible.  His exact words were that the flooring piece would be "too small to return" so he was just going to chop it off straight at the riser.  What?!?!?!?  We aren't experts (more so now, maybe) but we knew that wasn't right.  So we fired him.  I can honestly tell you that I have been feeling a little better every day knowing his mistakes aren't going to haunt us.  And this little, beautiful detail will make me happy for a long time to come.

Oh, and each of the stairs in the second run has one.  So that's a lot of impossible work that Travis is doing.  I think one of my favorite things about Travis is that he is humble.  The other guy was so arrogant and clearly not very good or willing to try and problem solve.  He just wanted to get in and out, not caring about doing a good job or not, which made us dislike him even more.  Travis, on the other hand, would never be so narcissistic as to say that a mistake of his was someone else's fault or couldn't be fixed.  He would never let it get that far.  He would see a potential problem a mile out and start trying to find a way to fix it.  Arrogance just proves that there is a lot you don't know but aren't willing to learn.

And here it is.  The floor on the stairs with all the pieces in place.  Not complete, per se, because we still have the staining to do on the custom nosing, but it's really lovely.  And sturdy.  And straight.  And level.

Under the apron and the now completed custom nosing to finished nosing transition there is a finishing piece.  (I was happy with it just as an apron, so seeing this piece made me really happy!)

The edges of the stairs, where there is a gap between the riser and the apron on the stringer now has a little finishing piece as well.  Travis was telling us that flooring guys never do stuff like this.  They just throw some caulk in there and call it quits.  They also wouldn't have used the MDF for the risers, but some sort of other wood that is really hard to repair if it gets dinged. 

The pretty intersection where the apron and the skirt meet as you round the landings.  This one is a pretty standard miter, though well done.

This one, however, is more of a trademark of Travis.  Most guys won't cut this crazy miter (which ends up being something like 117 degrees) because you have to hold it out away from the saw and your fingers get really, really close to the blade.  Most guys (even good stair guys) will have the apron and skirt meet up in a straight down orientation.  So it would come in from the apron, have a 90 turn, and then turn again into the skirt.  I think this looks incredibly elegant.  And I watched him cut it, so I am also very impressed with the level of difficulty of my staircase.  (If only there were stair Olympics . . .)

This is another tricky one.  It ends up being a sort of three dimensional miter, because it has to be cut at two angles at once.  Since that it impossible (I actually trust Travis when he says something is impossible) he cuts it as close as he can and then sands the majolies out of it until it is nice and smooth.  Smooth move, Travis.  Smooth move.

New Stairs - Day 5

After the fiasco of the ordering process from the flooring company, we had to wait a while before the stairs could be installed.  (Not this long, admittedly, I am a bit behind on blogging.)  We had enough of the wood (too much by two boxes, actually) but not enough of the nosing, which had to be reordered so that the stairs could all be done in a matter of a few days back to back rather than getting some of the work done and not the rest of it.  So even though this is technically Day 5 of actual work, it is Day 23 of having no banister.  The kids are starting to get used to it.  And less afraid of it.  So work must be done and sooner rather than later.

Luckily for us, that work was started by Travis and Mike, who, as we all know, do amazing work.

And fast, as it turns out!  By the time I got back from teaching my morning class (I was home by about 11:30) I had already missed a good deal of the work.  But it wasn't a bad thing to walk into the first run of stairs looking as lovely as this.

I was able, however, to capture the guys installing the custom stair nosing that they made to run the length of entryway and repair the work that the flooring guys screwed up.  It's smooth, beautiful work that Mike milled for us based on the wonky specs that they had due to the shift in sizes of the wood that the flooring guy had created.  So over the course of 8' it gets 1" wider.

But you can't really tell.  And it looks amazing.

By the end of the day, they had the first run and both landings completed.  SO PRETTY!

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Post Mortem

I think it's always valuable to revisit a project after it is complete to see how far off schedule and budget and even vision you are from the beginning.  With this project, I think the budget was actually on par with what we had anticipated, but I can't prove that because I didn't keep a project specific ledger of all of our expenses over the course of the project.

The vision is dead on.  Even better than anticipated, so that has to be worth something.

The schedule . . . that's a different matter.

Okay, here goes.

We started the project on August 13, 2010.  I wanted to have it done by Christmas.

The project was actually completed on September 4, 2015.  So I was off on my estimate by almost 5 years.  In my defense, there were two babies, the start of a new business, a new teaching and writing career, and any number of other delays, but still.  Those are not good numbers.

But the results are pretty cool.

 Before.

After.