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.