Stair Tread and Railing Upgrades Complete!

[lincmercguy]

I posted last year here and got some good advice.  I finished up this project (finally) late last year.  But I have a lot of other things going, so I haven't posted it yet.

I've been working on a website to host all of these projects, and it's a lot easier to post a link to the site.

Here's the finished product:
https://longfarmandfurniture.com/stairrailing.html

Here's the build process:
https://longfarmandfurniture.com/stairra...build.html

I know it's not perfect by any means, but I think it turned out well.  It's certainly much better looking and safer than the original.  

[Dumb_Polack]

I posted last year here and got some good advice.  I finished up this project (finally) late last year.  But I have a lot of other things going, so I haven't posted it yet.

I've been working on a website to host all of these projects, and it's a lot easier to post a link to the site.

Here's the finished product:
https://longfarmandfurniture.com/stairrailing.html

Here's the build process:
https://longfarmandfurniture.com/stairra...build.html

I know it's not perfect by any means, but I think it turned out well.  It's certainly much better looking and safer than the original.  

looks good!

The only thing that caught my eye was baseboard moulding transitioning to the piece that runs down the stair (outside shirt board??).   I wonder if there is a better way to make that transition so there's not the hard stop of one and the beginning of the other.   

I can't think of anything right now though

[lincmercguy]

I couldn't think of a better way to do it at the time. Maybe if I brought the baseboard further out and cut a cove into the return to fit over the quarter round. I didn't want to use the baseboard trim on the stair stringer and I needed a 3/4" quarter round to trim it against the wall.

[Woodenfish]

The work on all your projects looks exceptionally well done. But, can you paint behind a terlet?

[lincmercguy]

The work on all your projects looks exceptionally well done. But, can you paint behind a terlet?

I've been practicing. 

   

[Snipe Hunter]

Very nice upgrade. Well done. I did my molding transitions the same basic way. I couldn't think of a better way to do them either. They look fine and certainly better than what you'd find in a new home. I like the way you hid the step edges with the return over the drywall. Adds "dimension". Little things like that always makes a room more interesting and classier.

[jteneyck]

More good work from you, made even more impressive by the top-notch photography.  What are you using to take such great photos, besides a good eye?

The baseboard to skirt board transition looks fine to me; not sure how else you would do it.  However, the skirt board on the left looking up the stairs and the one coming down from the flight above looks pretty awkward to me.  I think I would have made a filler block to connect the two skirt boards where they go into that corner, and then run then mitered the quarter round to run uninterrupted.  If they are out of plane then that's another problem, not sure how I would have handled that.  

John

[EightFingers]

I’m getting ready to replace the spindles ( I have 156 to replace ) on my stairs with what you are using. Where did you get yours?

[lincmercguy]

More good work from you,...

Thanks!  This project was a bit intimidating.  I'd feel a lot better about taking on a project like this now that I have this one under my belt.

...made even more impressive by the top-notch photography.  What are you using to take such great photos, besides a good eye?

Obviously, you've replied to the wrong thread.  
  I've gotten a little better over the years, but not great.  I got some good tips here on compensating for color temperature for projects photographed in the shop (hope chest was my best one).  But low-light photography in the house has always been challenging to me.  The stairs were tougher since I couldn't get a good "overall" shot of it.  There's just nowhere to get far enough away from it.  But I wanted some good pictures of the completed project and in case I ever get serious about a career change.  The brown walls in this case were a challenge as well.  I'm not sure I'd pick this same color again, but it's what we went with and I'm not repainting for a long time.

I used a Canon Rebel TI6 with a 24-104 lens.  I forget the exact model, but it has image stabilization, which helps.  A couple of them were just with my phone.  Almost all of the "build" pictures for all projects were with my cell phone.  I resize everything down quite a bit to keep the site loading reasonably well.

However, the skirt board on the left looking up the stairs and the one coming down from the flight above looks pretty awkward to me.  I think I would have made a filler block to connect the two skirt boards where they go into that corner, and then run then mitered the quarter round to run uninterrupted.  If they are out of plane then that's another problem, not sure how I would have handled that.  

It is a little bit awkward.  I struggled with that part.  I think it trimmed up well, but the overall concept could be improved in that section.

The upper section is the stringer cover that I made as the real stringer is flush with the back side of the drywall.  The lower section is the actual stair stringer for that flight.  I could have made the upper stringer cover slightly thicker to make them coplanar (or close) and rounded the edge a bit more to make them look more alike, then added a filler piece.  I think I was intimidated with this enough as it was, but I could do better if I did something similar again.  Nothing beats real experience on a project for sure.  While I do consider myself a fairly accomplished woodworker, my trim carpentry has a ways to go.

I could have been better about filling some of the areas on the stringers where I cut the noses of the old treads off.  That was me in a rush trying to disrupt the main entrance of the house and garage (basement) as short of a time as possible.  If I used screws on the treads, I could have kept everyone off of it for a day and did the whole thing at once.

Another thing I should have done is put a couple of nails in the back of the tread to keep them in place while the adhesive cured.  A couple of tread covers shifted slightly, but not enough to redo.

I did make a couple of other mistakes along the way.  The original newel posts I ordered were way too short.  I just wasn't seeing it right.  Fortunately, I was able to return them.  A good friend of mine who is a contractor gave me the tips I needed to attach the lower newel to the bottom stair instead of the floor like the original.  This gave us a little more room on that tight landing area, and made it easier to tile.

I also made the mistake of ordering retrotread covers from Lowes.  I took half of them back, and didn't use a couple of them after staining because the cracks in the wood were highlighted by the stain and I didn't want to fill them with epoxy.  I was trying to save some money by only ordering the size I need.  The larger size ones in the store were much better and I could pick through to get the good ones.  I just cut them down to what was needed.

I think if I had to do this over, I might have gone with the craftsman style treads as well.  My house isn't craftsman style, but a lot of my furniture is close to it.  I like the style, but when I went to replace interior doors, it was much cheaper to get the regular six-panel doors for the house.  If I had gone craftsman style with those doors, I would have done so with the stairs as well.

[6270_Productions]

I've been practicing. 

Good help is hard to find.