Category: Stairs

With the edging installed and the railings varnished, we moved on to balusters. I bought three different kinds of wrought iron balusters to make up a pattern: plain straight, a swirling pattern intended to tie with the front door that we called “squiggles”, and “baskets” where several pieces wrap around to make a ball. Originally I was planning to put “knuckles” for these, little diamond-shaped bits along the straight length, but Sarah liked the baskets and they were cheaper than the knuckles, which made it an easy call. I worked out a pattern and approximate quantities to order, along with “shoes” (the little piece that goes at the bottom), epoxy, and an epoxy gun.

The installation process was to first map out where the pieces would go, such that they was never more than a four-inch gap (per-code) and yet they didn’t land on the bullnose part of the treads. This probably wouldn’t have been that hard with all straight and basket pieces, but the addition of the wider squiggles meant I had to adjust spacing. I wound up having to be flexible to get this to work, with each run of steps having slightly different spacing.

Dean came over to help with this project, bringing his metal cut off saw (of course he has one of those) which made the process go much faster than if we had just used an angle grinder. We started with the horizontal run along the basement stair opening (the stairs that don’t exist yet). All of the horizontal sections were much easier to work out spacing, since there’s no bullnoses to work around, but it was my first one so it still took me a while. I put a piece of masking tape down, worked out the spaces, and then drilled holes for each one. I used my laser level to determine where the top should go and drilled those too. Drilling these holes took forever, and I wound up getting a new spade bit for the rest of the project, which was dramatically faster.

The other reason the horizontal sections were easier is because all of the balusters were the same height. Dean was able to cut them in bulk and get the ends ground smooth while I got the holes drilled and then I started putting them in with epoxy. The epoxy dispenser worked pretty well, and there was a decent amount of work time. We taped all of the shoes up before we put the balusters in so that we wouldn’t forget them and they’d be out of the way until the epoxy cured. You can’t come back and put the shoe on later if you epoxy the baluster in without it, so this was important.

We worked our way up the first flight, which got the two longest stretches of railing complete that day, but that was as far as we made it. Dean was nice enough to come back not once, but twice this week to help finish the project. I needed to get all of the holes drilled in the edging going up to the attic and in the attic hallway before the carpeting installation so we didn’t get sawdust in our new carpeting, so I got those sections mapped and drilled in advance. The first evening we finished all of the horizontal sections, getting into a good rhythm. The second evening Dean was joined by both his dad and Dan, and the four of us were able to get through the three remaining sections of stairs, cutting, grinding, taping, and epoxying.

The last run we did we encountered a new problem. The balusters are 44″ tall since the railings are 42″ high but they need to pocket in. Somehow, on several of the steps leading up to the attic from the landing, because the baluster aligned with the back edge of the step where the baluster is longest, we needed balusters taller than that. To solve this problem, we added little stubs to the bottom of the balusters where it will be covered up by the shoe anyway.

The kids went around and removed all of the blue masking tape, and then Dan came back on Saturday and used an allen wrench to tighten all of the many, many little baluster shoes in place.

As I mentioned a couple posts back, Sarah took on the project of adding a hardwood edging to the stairs that go from the second floor to the attic as well as the attic hallway that overlooks the stairwell. Carpeting will cover the remainder. The first step was to add a piece of veneer plywood to each step riser using glue and a stapler, next cover the holes with Drydex (spackle) and prime the wood. I mixed up some regular drywall mud and filled in the corners where the risers meet the drywall sides of the stairs. I took the opportunity to patch some dings and dents, as well as close up the too-big vent opening in Emily’s ceiling. Some additional Drydex and sanding got most of these corners looking presentable, and paint will round it out.

Next was cutting mitered bullnose pieces to cover the tread edge. The rest of this L-shaped piece was filled with hardwood flooring scraps, which he fortunately have plenty of. Sarah cut all the pieces and glued and brad-nailed them all in place, with me assisting on a couple complex bits where they intersected the newel posts.

Sarah and Emily went around and spread wood fill into all the cracks. I had picked up red oak wood fill since it’s red oak flooring, but I’m a bit disappointed in the end result, because it’s much redder than the wood itself and stands out, the exact opposite of what you want wood fill to do. I would go with the natural color wood fill if we had a do-over.

After that, we got to sanding. We got some new power tools for Christmas, among them a cordless random orbit sander which got a lot of use in this process. A lot of edges needed more manual assistance from sanding blocks and folded pieces of sandpaper, but after many many hours, it was looking better.

I picked up TotalBoat Halcyon Clear marine grade polyurethane for the newels, railings, and edges, since we know they’ll need to handle a lot of abuse. After yet more sanding, we started brushing on the varnish. This… didn’t go as well. At a lot of the joints in the newels we started getting black drips. We’d wipe them off but then come back in a few minutes to find more, in some cases hardening in the varnish. This led to more sanding, more varnishing, and eventually we got most sections to look decent.

We spent a lot of time cleaning these up, and from the research I’ve done it’s most likely caused by a reaction with the tannic acid in the oak, but we can’t be sure. I don’t think it was a problem with the varnish, since no one else seems to have reported it and it’s very highly rated, but there are some other folks having general issues with oak finishing.

In addition to the stair cladding, I also needed to do the newel posts, railings, and balusters. We’re going to have stained red oak newels and railings, and iron balusters with some spiral pieces to tie thematically with our front door. I did a bit of online research and started ordering the parts I needed. I got the newel posts from the same company that made the stair treads, we ordered balusters from a couple of companies, and the railings are from Home Depot.

I also did some research on how to mount these things, since no one wants a newel post that wiggles around. There are a few options, but I ordered some fasteners and set to work from the top down, figuring that since I needed to learn how to do this I didn’t want to start on the most visible and used section of the stairs.

I have a “half newel” that goes against the wall in the attic, which connects a horizontal railing to the newel post at the top of the attic stairs. Almost immediately, I ran into trouble, since the only wood behind the wall to anchor the half newel to was on the other side, meaning I needed screws longer than I had. I moved onto the newel post, figured out where that was going to sit, drilled a hole in the floor and screwed in the giant lag. I figured out the correct height for the newel if the railing is 42″ high and centered in the top portion, then cut the newel post to the correct height. You have to cut a hole in the side of the newel at the bottom and another one in the bottom. The newel fits over the lag bolt, then through side opening you put in a little curved piece and the nut. It’s a total pain to tighten the nut through the little hole with a wrench, and if your height isn’t right, you can’t get the wrench in or out. Finally you glue a little oak circle called a bung into the hole in the side. When we sand and finish, it should mostly disappear.

I had to notch cut the newel at the landing where it met the stair and the next challenge was attaching the railing. I bought “Zip Bolts” which are these little cams that fit into a hole in the bottom of the railing to screw down onto a bolt in the newel. These work well once they’re in and threaded, but getting them attached is a hassle. I also discovered that I shouldn’t tighten the newels down before I install the railing, since then you don’t have any room to fit the railing onto the bolts on either end, but I did have to tighten the newels down so I could get an accurate measurement of the railing length, so I wound up tightening, loosening, and then re-tightening the newels to get them situated. The angled Zip Bolts for the stair railings in particular were a frustration because they were so difficult to tighten into position that they would snap off and need to be carefully removed.

Progress continued slowly. I made a jig that simplified finding the spot on the newels to drill for the railing, and Dean helped get through a few more newels with his impact driver that sped up the bolts. Because I didn’t have room to get the attic railing in with the newel already tightened down and the wooden bung already glued in, I had to buy a variation of the Zip Bolt that had a little keyhole piece you screw into the newel. Then another cam-bolt in the railing can extend into the top, the railing slides into position, and then you can tighten it down. This worked eventually, but like everything else required a lot of trial and error.

The last two railings as I worked my way down were the first floor to the landing and then a horizontal railing on the first floor where the basement stairs will eventually descend. These were tricky because they were each two-part railings. Because the newel on the landing was aligned with the next run of stairs up to the second floor, it was set back from the front edge of the landing, meaning the railing had to change to horizontal before it connected to the newel. I worked this out by laying the railing on the stairs, cutting it to length and then attaching the short horizontal piece. Everything looked great until Sarah and I lifted it into position and it was short by a couple of inches. Some inspection revealed that I hadn’t accounted for how high off the step the bottom of the railing was: that needed to be the same height at the top of the railing where it connected to the horizontal piece. As a result, I’d cut the long railing too short.

Fortunately, I still had one long railing left for the horizontal run on the first floor, which was shorter. That meant I could swap the pieces around and not waste a very expensive piece of wood. The second go went more smoothly and I got the railing installed. The horizontal railing has a quarter turn on the end where it connects to the newel, so that was also a two-piece, but a bit simpler to fit. At least, it seemed that way until I realized the half newel against the landing column wasn’t square and I’d cut the railing down to the shorter side. I managed to get out of this by cutting the railing at and angle, and then fudging the end that ends on the stair newel off center by about a quarter inch.

With all the newels and railings installed, I went around with wood fill, sand paper, and a random orbital sander. I got all of the holes plugged with bungs, flush cut them, touched up with yet more wood fill and sanding, and it was pretty much ready to varnish. At that point we needed to switch gears to the second floor to attic stair edging I mentioned in my previous post, since it made more sense to do that and then varnish everything at once.

I built the first floor stairs quite a while ago, back in August of 2014, actually. They’re a combination of LVL and OSB, and the intention has always been to skin or clad them in wood. We debated a bit whether to do all stained or white risers and skirts with stained steps, and we finally settled on the latter, since the underside of the stairs is drywalled, and the stairs up to the attic are also drywalled since they’ll have carpeting, plus they don’t stock red oak plywood locally. With the hardwood flooring going in, now’s a great time to get this project into gear.

I ordered pre-made stair treads that are routed to fit our stairs. The stairs are open on the right side all the way up, so this means we have an overhang of the tread bullnose on that side as well as the front. The retro treads are unfinished red oak, just like the floors, and were made (fairly) locally in Goshen, Indiana. After some back and forth with the company to confirm the specifications, they made them and shipped them over along with the newel posts. With stairs up to the attic and hallways overlooking the stairs, there’s actually quite a few newel posts.

I picked up a cheap Wen track saw, which is awesome. I’ve wanted a track saw for a while, since they’re great for cutting large panel goods in straight lines, much easier and more accurate than trying to manhandle a 4×8 sheet through the table saw along a fence. I went with quarter inch veneer plywood for the risers, because they’re just going to be painted, so there isn’t any need for them to be particularly thick. The OSB behind it is already 3/4″.

After vacuuming the steps and removing a kazillion staples from when the spray foam installers put plastic over everything (and then continuing to find stray staples throughout this process), I started from the top, gluing and stapling the plywood to the risers. All of the riser pieces I cut slightly shorter than the height of the risers themselves because the tread will overlap at the top and cover the edge at the bottom. That simplified the sizing, since I have at least a half inch of “fudge”. I did a test fit with the tread and realized the top step needed the depth padded, so I had to scrap my first attempt. I added some hardwood flooring scraps and the second try worked better. When I got to the side skirt, which covers the side of the stringer, I cut a strip the correct length, but then mistakenly cut too much off the end to make the angle where it meets the second floor. Oh well, I was going to have to pick up another sheet of plywood anyway.

I went to Home Depot after it stopped raining and picked up some additional supplies, including another sheet of quarter inch veneer plywood, which I wratchet-strapped to the roof of our hatchback. Not 500 feet from the store, a gust of wind caught the leading edge and ripped about three feet of it off, pinwheeling over the car and landing in front of the car behind me. I quickly pulled over and shoved the ripped off piece into the back seat. Fortunately, the tear happened in a spot that I could still use it. With the additional sheet back at the house, if in pieces, progress continued more smoothly. I was able to cut the remaining pieces for the risers, and then the skirting for the larger run.

One of the things that I neglected to mention is why I’m doing this project in the first place. After all, we hired out the rest of the house, right? People have shown up to do siding, the roof, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, spray foam, drywall, tiling, build the front and back porch, tile the bathrooms, lay the hardwood flooring, so why am I working on stuff at all? The answer is, not surprisingly, money. Our GC quoted us $22,000 to clad the stairs and install railings up to the attic. Material costs for all the treads, newel posts, balusters, rails, plywood, etc. is several thousand all told, but it’s not anywhere near that, so I asked what the cost for labor would be if we bought all the materials ourselves, and he said $11,000. My problem is that I know roughly how to do these things and how much time and effort is involved. In my opinion, this wasn’t anywhere near eleven grand in labor, so I told the GC I’d do it myself. So here I am, installing the stair cladding and eventually newel posts, railings, and balusters.

Now, in fairness, I did need a lot of tools to do this work. Just for this project, I used a shop vac with dust extractor, scraper, needle nose vice grips, mini pry bar, track saw, allen wrench, jig saw, miter saw, router, channel locks, impact driver (with three different bits), a pneumatic stapler and accompanying compressor, putty knife, measuring tape, angle finder, combination square, pencil, gluebot, shop light, utility razor, hammer, straight edge, and two different chisels, and that’s before I got to sanding and painting. I could have done it without the track saw, but since I was already saving money and I knew I’d get more use out of it down the road, it was easy enough to justify buying. All of the other tools we already had, which is part of why we sign up for these projects.

With the riser cladding attached, I first rough cut to the steps with the jigsaw, then followed up with a flush bit on the router. Since it’s only quarter inch plywood, this went fairly quickly, with just a couple spots the router couldn’t get into and I had to use a razor blade. I added outside corner trim to the bottom edge to transition to the drywall underneath, which involved some fancy cuts that actually turned out pretty well. Once everything was glued and stapled, I went over every staple and joint with Drydex, a kind of spackle. I’ve read that for painted wood, Drydex is a better choice than wood fill. I started out using a putty knife, but quickly switched to my fingers like an overgrown pre-schooler playing with Play-Doh.

I came back a bit later and sanded everything smooth, reapplying a couple of spots and hitting a few more proud staples with a hammer. The thicker joints were still pink so I decided to leave it overnight. The next morning I sanded and reapplied a couple of the corners again. The one downside to the Drydex is that it’s a little too easy to sand, so I wound up taking too much off and then having to add it back on again. Eventually I got it smooth enough to put on the first coat of paint, of course finding new spots that would require touch ups. After this cycle repeated for a bit, I finally reached the point where it either looked good enough or I didn’t know how to make it look better, and I rolled a couple coats of finish paint on.

The last step in the process was to install the treads. I was concerned about using a brad nailer, since I don’t want any squeaks, so I decided just to use PL Premium glue. There are a total of fifteen treads, so I bought a couple tubes, which turned out to be woefully inadequate. I started from the top and worked my way down, cleaning each rough tread and then squeezing on an even pattern of glue before pressing the finish tread into place. I ran out of glue, ran to the store and bought two more tubes, and then got the rest of the finish treads in place.

Then I had to clean up all my tools since the hardwood floor guys were coming back the next day, which unfortunately meant I needed to take a lot of stuff upstairs. I made the mistake of thinking this wouldn’t really affect the glue set up, and by the time I was done several of the treads were loose. This meant I had to go to the store again and buy more glue, so I could reattach them. Then, because sometimes this is how things go, there were more loose treads than I realized, I used up both tubes, had to run to the store again and buy still more glue, to finally finish things up. The next day when Sarah and I tried them out, we discovered one of the treads squeaks.

The hardwood floor guys are back and they’re going to finish the treads along with the floor. When they’re done, I’ll most likely pry that tread back up, scrape down the glue, and re-glue it. The good news is I think I still have enough glue left.