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Stair project underway
Today J came over and we began the stairway project. The carpeting is now all ripped out and all the nail strips are pried off. That’s only the first stage because when we rip into a project there is never only one stage.
The stairs are not in the greatest shape. I didn’t really expect them to be. They were never built to be un-carpeted—which is to say, the builders slapped them together without much care for detail work and dripped paint all over them. There is a gap of at least a quarter inch along the sides of some of the stair treads and none of the risers actually meet the wall. A little trim and some wood putty should take care of the aesthetics, but it’s going to be a fussy and time consuming project. I’m painting the stairs anyway, so that should be okay.
I’ll probably take some before and after photos, to see how close I come to my perfectionist standard. I think I’ll do some stenciling, too.
The very bottom step has to be removed and repaired or replaced. It has a lovely crack in it. I think it can be glued and clamped with good results. If not, well, nuts.
In any case, I have my different grades of sand paper, tack cloth, trim, and primer paint all ready to go. This is going to be finished as soon as humanly possible.
And I didn’t even break a nail!
You could use those things for screw drivers! Well, I used to, at least. For a moment, I thought you had broken one, though.
According to my horoscope, we should have done it today lol. Supposedly I am going to help someone with home repairs and have plenty of ideas! Day early and a dollar short!
Our large home store sells stair treads. Might be easier to replace it than repair it.
I had considered that, Lorinda. It would seem easier to replace them, but then again… I’d have to cut them perfectly to get them to fit in their spaces without any gaps and I have a strong hunch that nothing is exactly plum in this house so the chances of no gaps are between slim and none. (I’ll bet there would be a lot more enclosed staircases in new construction if not for fitting stairs perfectly, which I think is much more art than measuring twice and cutting once.) Then I’d have to nail them down, set the nails, apply wood putty to gaps and over nails, sand, and polyurethane or paint.
I think I might be further ahead with already nailed down treads. They still need to have the nails set and puttied and gaps filled, surfaces sanded and painted, but there are a couple less steps involved with pretty much the same end results. 
I may still have to replace the bottom tread, but I’d much rather repair it if possible. It is the trickiest one of the bunch with a cut that allows it to wrap around a corner, which I’m not sure I could duplicate without going through a few practice treads.
A few years ago, we took all the carpeting out of our house and installed hardwood....no, let me rephrase that, WE did not do it, our wonderful floor guy did!! When it came to the staircase, he found lots of little surprises, just as you did.........so many, in fact, that he ended up having to basically rebuild the entire staircase cause nothing was as it should have been. He did a wonderful job too.
In fact, we are in the midst of planning out a huge kitchen renovation now and I have decided to have him do hardwood in there, the laundry room and the one room I had kept a carpet in--the dining room. He is that good!!
Several houses ago, I hired an older gentleman to put down hard wood floors. He was a craftsman and I enjoyed watching him take out his pocket knife and trim pieces of wood to fit snugly into corners and edges with absolute precision. I wanted to hire him again a few years later, but he apologetically told me that he was now an old man and he’d earned his retirement. I was happy that he was enjoying his retirement, but rather sad for my loss.
Did you fall into one of the cracks in the stairway?
She must have, cause it is radio silence from Kate!! So, since you have not posted anything new, I shall use this space to say THANK YOU for the tip a while back about the laser mouse for Dusty. Oh my god, she loves it and we have never laughed so hard. She can jump about 4+ feet in air using the wall to push off on trying to get it. She gets SO mad when she cannot get it. Love it, love it..........and seems to have exhausted her enough so the nocternal wanderings are much less. Thanks!!
Hey J, is Kate OK? This is a wicked long time for her to remain incommunicado especially since a while back she said she would try to write more often. Now I am worried. KATE WHERE ARE YOU??
On another note, 16” of snow predicted between now and Tuesday morning. Tell me again why I live in NE? This sucks!! Virtually everyone we know is either in Florida for the winter or some other place that does not get snow OR left this week to be there for the next 2-3 weeks. What did we do wrong?? ;)
Sorry Cyn. I thought about posting that she was alive lol. Don’t worry if she doesn’t post for a few days I get all in her face with emails and calling her, pain in the butt canceled her land line so now I only have one number to hound her at lol. We have both been sick this week.