Stairway to the Upstairs

On Sunday, my dad came over to help us build new stairs.  We are going to lay hardwood flooring across them, but the base stairs that came with the house were very crappy and needed to be replaced.

I knew my dad was smart, but until Sunday, I didn't realize that he was a genius.  Building stairs is hard work people.  The math involved in incredibly difficult and the angles (although just right angles) are super complicated. 

Here are some photos of our progress: 

 

Uh oh!  What's that?  If you guessed a hole where the stairs should be, you are correct!  Jon thought it was super fun to climb up and down from the basement to the kitchen through the hole instead of using the perfectly good basement steps.

No, Jill, 1/16th of an inch off is not acceptable.

My super cool dad hard at work.  The sides of the steps are what take the longest because we had to carve out a part for the bullnose wood at the top step.

The finished product!  We are going to lay hardwood lengthwise across the stairs and we ordered the additional bullnose pieces for the edges of the stairs.  Unfortunately Lumber Liquidators only sells the wood that we need in 6 1/2 foot lengths (and the stairs are 38 inches across) so we had to buy two pieces at a cost of 45 dollars each!   I'm using the rest for an art piece, stay tuned for pictures.

And now, a Haiku about my dad:

Stair building genius. 
Is everything level?  Thrice.
Two steps, eighty screws used.

And a poem from my perspective:

This math is very hard. 
I cannot divide fractions. 
Find an app for that. 




Stay tuned for additional updates on our door installation, our nearly completed (OMG) master bedroom and the wall paper removal from hell.

Happy Contracting!