One Step Forward 23 Steps Back- Stair Building Part 4

Okay, so had time this week to get a little bit more work done on the back stairs....man did I screw up a lot......
Sit back and enjoy a pictorial tour through how not to build stairs.

Having learned when drilling the 4by4 ledger that free handing the drilling is a bad idea I set up this fancy 'jig' with the drill press to get nice straight holes. Worked out pretty well except I could only do the bottom hole on each post....had to rotate the set-up 90 deg to be able to drill both holes.....and then the drill press didn't have enough travel so I had to finish all the holes with the hand drill anyways....

I didn't take a bunch of pics of setting the stringers (only 2 cause I can't set the last one till I reside the back of the house...) I didn't think to level the 2by4 kicker or the ledger before I tried to set the stringers...I notched the ledger a bunch and it turns out I didn't need to...so, lots of shims where hurt and destroyed in this production. The Simpson angles that I used here really firmed up the stringers. I plan to use two on each to help tie them to the ledgers.

Also, see that big bolt in the left hand corner...that's one of the two bolts that hold on the posts for the guard rails...The bolts I bought where too short by 1/2" so I rummaged around and found some bolts that where 1/2" too long! So I used some extra washers and was able to get the posts up nice and tight.

Here's a shot of one of those posts...look at all those shims! It is plumb in both directions though... This also shows that that stringer was not set plumb...well...parts of it are and parts are not...it kinda twisted in the sun and heat...

After attaching the posts I REALLY didn't like how easily they twisted the stringer. I used the off cuts from the stringer as blocking between the posts to tie the one stringer into the other. When I set the final stringer I will continue the blocking on to it I think....

After doing this the posts firmed up dramatically.

Here's a shot of the guard rails installed....They are a bit more uh, visually imposing than the standard way of doing 2by2's between the guard rails. In this shot you'll see that the spacing is not even, there is slightly more space between the top guardrail and the next one...this is a design feature and not at all a f-up cause I couldn't get my little brain around how to properly divide up the 21.5" space between the top of the bottom rail and the bottom of the top rail. The rails do all line up nicely with the bottom riser though.

This shot shows the guard rails from the other side. You can also see the two stringers attached to the dropped rim joist here. The little triangle cut offs worked well and the stringers where able to sit completely in the hanger...

Not I gotta talk about another f-up. I didn't realize that the deck slopes at 1/4" per foot for drainage...that means that the level line I struck to set the stringers to varied in distance from the deck surface by an inch!! So the riser height went from the correct 7 3/8" to 8 3/8"!! That 8"+ height is two far by code... I was stumped...this HAS to happen every time a level stair intersects with a non-level deck right? You are supposed to make the stairs level across them...

I sought out the consul of some pros and they said to basically split the difference so that measured in the middle of the riser I would get the correct 7 3/8" and one side would be a little more and the other a little less but as long as I didn't exceed the code restrictions I should be okay.

This meant setting the stringers at slightly different heights than they were designed for which caused some extra shimming on the other end.

This shot is meant to show another f-up...See how the lag screws aren't in a nice-pretty line...I'm sure a pro would of thought ahead and had them all lined up nice and pretty...Also, I again bought the wrong size lag screw...the ones I got where too short by an inch...so had to buy a box more...

I do have to say that the 3/8" lag screws and the washers seem to make for a really strong attachment.

This shows the 1" spacers I had to cut outta the PT scraps from the treads. I ran a single lag screw through these and into the existing deck rail...I'm going to have to reinforce the existing deck rail here as its not really connected to the deck at the bottom.

This pic shows multiple screw-ups...First, I cut the 2by6 guard rails cause I thought they were going to have to change direction at that vertical 2by4...nope they don't...the deck having that weird little nook is causing me some issues...

But, the two long rails that are lagged to the existing deck guard rail there feel really firm.

Second, if you extend out the top guard rail and have it intersect with the last post in the same way it does the other two...you learn that that post is several inches too short!!! hurray!

I was planning on the top guard rail being the hand rail also and its set at a comfortable 37" above the treads. Which BTW, was a measurement I KEPT screwing up as you have to make sure you're measuring it at the correct point... With the setup I have here the guard-handrail will be 37" until it crosses the last riser, which is the deck....past that its going to go above 37" until it lands on the post....I don't know if this is okay or if I'm going to have to cut the guard rails even with the last riser and make them go horizontal until they end on the post....If I do that I won't have to buy another post but it will be a much bigger PITA to finish the guard rails....

Annnd finally, I don't now think that PT is a wise idea for the hand rail...After I route an officially graspable handrail out of it its still going to be splintery, and poisonous......So, I'm probably going to replace it with a redwood rail that will be much easier on the hands...

Here's a pic that shows how short that last post is if I don't make the rails turn horizontal. This also shows why I couldn't move this last post any closer to the last riser. Its all wood in the way. I could of put the post where the original one was, on the inside of the stringers but that would of cut down on the width of my stairs significantly...to where it would of been very hard to get the required 36" minimum clear tread length.
This also brings up another question...these framing members here are only 6" deep...I don't know if that's deep enough to support this post correctly...I do happen to have several 9" long 1/2" lag screws (why I own these I don't know) that would be long enough to go through the post, both 2by6's and into the 6by6 but I don't know if that's going to be enough... I think that I'll have to figure out an additional bolting-strengthening strategy...
Oh yea, the bottom of this also shows that I used the Simpson screws that where too long for the hanger...

Well that's it for now...anybody want to hire me to build them some stairs??? I'm slow, but sloppy and expensive!

This project is basically on hold until I can figure out the final post issue and then go buy supplies...but even then, that's all I can do until we reside the house...then I set the last stringer and screw in the treads and I'm done!!!

Oh wait, I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do about the risers...they have to pass the 4"sphere rule...

How Not To Build Stairs...Stair Building Part 3

Or maybe I should say, 'The stairs that PL Premium built.'

This is the last stringer I was cutting. I was almost done with it. Just finishing the cuts with a jigsaw and this happened... A previously unknown check-split caused this section to just fall out!

Holy Moly was I pissed off....so close...I thought I would have to go buy another 2by12 and start all over again.....But a pro told me no, just glue it back together with PL Premium glue and the repair will be stronger than the original wood..

So I went a little glue crazy as you can see from this picture. I glued the original f-up and wow it does appear to be stronger...but then, but then, I noticed a ton more cracks in the stringer? WTF!?!?!? I swear they where not there before. So I went through the stringer and glued those also...Then I dropped the other stringer and caused a crack in one end so I glued that too.

Lets just say I glued the heck outta that stringer...

I also glued on little triangular tabs so that the joist hangers would bear fully on the wood.

The pros that saw this original set up with just the two Simpson brackets holding up the dropped rim joist where very suspicious that it would be strong enough. So, I took several of the triangular off cuts and used them as braces.

I admit that with just the Simpson brackets that there was some deflection in the joist when I shoved it hard....Now, wow, absolutely no movement. When I shove it hard with my shoulder the entire deck shakes...I think we're good with this set up.

Another major issue the pros' found with my set up was how the left hand side of the stringer was unsupported. That all the force from the stairs are carried in that corner and leaving it unsupported the stringers were guaranteed to crack.

If I was smart I would of jiggered the rise/run so that the heal would of landed on the concrete wall...now I'll have to add additional support here.

Enter the concrete anchors...It was suggested that I use 1/2 lag bolts to support a ledger that would take the stair load. I had an extra piece of PT 4by4 lying around so I decided to use that. To use the lags you need to drill a hole in the concrete 3/4" in this case deep enough to set the lag shields in. Then, when you insert the lag bolts the shield expands and locks everything in place.

WOW, drilling these holes was a huge painful PITA... It took me about a half hour per hole...luckily I have a heavy duty drill but geez, I surely coulda used an impact drill....I kept the bit cool by spraying it with water but there was nobody to keep me cool as I worked in the oven that is our sunken living room.

Turns out, using a 4by4 probably not the smartest way to go... Keeping the holes your drilling on the right path is pretty tough with that much wood to chew thru. As one pro suggested, 'I shoulda used 2 2by6's'...I had to adjust one of the holes in the wood but the other two where spot on. Man, I hope 3 bolts is enough...I tightened it up with my impact driver and WOW does this seem sturdy. Hopefully it will be sturdy enough...

I completely aggravated the two bulged discs in my back doing this...If I have to drill another couple of holes I'm going to cry like a little girl...

Here's a shot looking down the concrete wall. I'll have to shave off a bit of the new ledger probably but I'll do that as I need to when I set the stringers.

Next up is to take it easy for a day at least...it's just ice and Advil for me for a while.

Then I want to cut the treads, coat all the cut ends, I'll set the outside stringer. I'll probably install the posts and the railings-guards on the outside stringer...and install the middle stringer, but I'll have to wait to install the final stringer and to screw the treads down until after I finish residing the back of the house...

Ouch my back hurts...

It's Curtains For You!

Okay, this post is going to be a little bit different....its all about curtains, drapes, window treatments what have you....


In a desperate attempt to get our daughter to sleep past 5:30am we surmised that maybe its the morning sunlight streaming into her room that is waking her up? Her room used to be a sun porch ya know. What if we could get 'blackout' curtains for her room? If it was dark would she stay asleep?

Off I head to our local Bed Bath& Beyond store.....now, I've never really ever in my life thought about curtains and it turns out I had A LOT to learn....luckily a kindly store employee took pity on me and helped me figure things out. Did you know that a curtain needs to be at least twice as wide as the window?



One thing I gotta say......'Holy Friggen Mackerel Curtains Are Expensive!!!' I guess that's why the standard window treatment in the ghetto is the ole 'tumb tacked bed sheet to the window trim'.

After what seemed like 30hrs staring at the clearance section this is what I came home with. Curtains for Tasha's room and for our room. The box of candy wasn't on sale but it was necessary none the less...as was the large mocha I was sipping in the store...without that caffeine I think I woulda strangled somebody...

This was an interesting find I thought. Curtain rods that are hinged to swing away from the window. I thought it would be the perfect thing to replace the curtain that we are using as the door to the nursery.

Here's the curtain that we're replacing.

And the new double layer curtain-door thingy.

Here's a shot of the 'door' open. One side blocks the light from the window on the door and that's not ideal...But we like how the other side blocks the view of all the ugly crap on the open shelf.

Here's what the old doorway looked like on a bright sunny day.

Here's what it looks like now! Success I'd say...

Here's what the original curtains looked like.

Here are the blackout curtains I bought to replace them. I should have another panel here as these are kinda stretched thin.

Here's a shot of the curtain rod I installed and the curtains open to prove what a lovely day it was.

Here's a shot with the curtains closed. The room really is, a lot darker now. But will it be darker enough?

Here's a shot of the original curtains in our bedroom. This is in the later afternoon so there's direct sunlight shinning through them. I didn't buy fancy curtain rods for in here...we're going to try to make due with just the tension rods.

Here's what it looks like with a double layer of 'light reducing' curtains....Its markedly better for sure but there is still a lot of light streaming in around the edges.

Wow, I spent almost an entire Saturday dealing with curtains!...

Will it work? Will the rooms be dark enough to keep the baby asleep for longer?

Update:
It appears to of worked!! The baby woke up at 5:30am and put herself back to sleep until the friggen cat woke her up. Irene scooped her up and brought her back to bed and fed her. Our newly darkened room appears to be dark enough as the baby went back to sleep and slept until....8:30am!!! Wooooooo-Hooooooooooooooo!!! Could this be the answer? Have we missed out on countless hours of sleep for the lack of correct window treatments?

Update to the Update:
Dang, Monday morning and the baby was up for good at 6:30am......maybe yesterday we just got lucky? I guess time will tell...

I'm Not Stringing Ya Along...Stair Building Pt. 2

Or maybe I should of titled this post, 'Your Carriage is Here.' (Framing Humor)

Okay, so, after the deconstruction now I have to turn this pile of wood into a set of stairs...

I double checked my measurements after the area was clear and got the same measurements (whew). I set the stair buttons on my framing square to 10" and 7 3/8" and started drawing some lines...then I noticed something...the edges of lumber are pretty rounded..which means I had to kinda guess at the intersection between the previous line and the square...I found that my estimating was not so good...I was getting a systematic error... I needed to figure out a better way...

Enter my rule from one of my machine squares. I could line this up on the previous line and extend it down so that I had the square intersecting with the correct extension of my rise/run lines. I guess pros just 'eyeball' it?

Skipping a bunch of steps...I used my sidewinder to cut the treads then my jigsaw to finish the edges...and look what we have, a sorta finished stringer.

I was trying to figure out how to attach this stringer to the dropped rim joist and came upon this conundrum. The stringer, being at an angle doesn't fit into the fracking joist hanger? All the books I have show the stringers being attached with joist hangers and since the stringers are always on an angle this has to ALWAYS be a problem right? This can't be good can it with the stinger not bearing on the hanger correctly?

I decided that what I am going to do is cut a little wedge from the bottom of these offcuts and glue it to the stringer with some super-fab Elmer's nano-glue. That way the stringer will be in contact 100% with the hanger. Should work right?

In mucking about with the joist hangers I got to collecting all our Simpson hardware.....dang, we have a lot of it...

Even more hardware....look at that bin of bolts....that's left over from when we did the deck at our last house! Why did I think I needed 8" lag bolts?

Here's what I decided to do about the dropped rim joist. I used two Simpson brackets and their structural screws to attach it to the 6by6 joist. I also sunk 3 screws into the joist on the edge that you can just see the bottom of here. It feels pretty solid but maybe the left side has a bit more flexion than I'd like. Once I decide where the joist hangers are going to go exactly I might add another bracket on the left hand side.

Watch that first step! Here's a shot of the 2by4 kicker bolted in place.

And voila the stringer fits!!!!

Some how I F'd up the notch for the kicker...I mean I really got it wrong....I'll have to add some wood back in on the left hand side to stabilize the stringer. I plan on attaching the stringers to the kicker with Simpson brackets also.

Buuuuuuut, check this out. The fricken stringer is basically perfectly level!! Woo-Hooooooo!!!

Next up is to trace this one good stringer onto the other two (not including the messed up notch for the kicker) and hopefully be able to replicate it pretty closely. Then glue my little wedges into the top edges of all three. While the glue is drying I'll cut all the treads@ 44" wide.

I still haven't exactly figured out where the posts are going to go but I'm working on it....

Realtor Shenanigans???

Okay, Okay I admit I'm probably more than a little bit aggravated right now....cause...

Our bid wasn't accepted....the sellers choose a different bid....

Does this seem fishy to you?
We bid on a house that has been on the market for like uh, 3 months, the price started at $819k, went to $799k and has been at $759k for over a month...with no bids that I am aware of.

We put in our bid and all of a sudden there are 2 other bids! Bids that we are led to believe are higher than ours...

Is it out of line to ask to see the other bids? To prove that they exist and to see if we can beat them? I don't think so. If its the Realtors job to get the most money for their clients and they are presented with this option, I'm pulling my bid or you can let me look at the other bids to see if I can/want to beat it. Wouldn't they then HAVE to show me the bids? Or is this just a total B.S. tactic to try to force us to increase the amount of our bid?

I am constantly hearing from Realtors that its a breach of their fiduciary responsibility to say or do this or its a breach of their 'ethics' to say that or do this..... Who all thinks ethics and Realtors go together like oil and water?

Fiduci-what-now?
First, I want all Realtors and readers to read what the actual definition of a fiduciary is. Its absolutely anathema to the concept of fiduciary responsibility to be paid by a commission based on how high a house sells for.... Well not exactly for the sellers Realtor.....but for the buyers...holy crap what an obvious conflict of interest...

Here's what I suggest 'buyers Realtors' do.
They get paid a straight fee for their services with a bonus based on how much lower than the asking price they can get the sellers to agree too. The bonus should also be based partly on time...find a house and get into contract less than the agreed upon time and get a bonus, take longer, and get a negative bonus. Now, THAT would have 'buyers Realtors' really working for the buyers.

What is this ethics thing I'm always hearing from Realtors?
Is there some nationwide Realtor ethics code they're all sworn to uphold? If there is, I bet its written by Realtors to protect only the Realtors....same with a 'code of conduct'. Every time I get the 'ethics' excuse its because a Realtor does not want to reveal a piece of information that they think will reflect badly on the house.....

Craig's List Shenanigans
In an attempt to get the word out and jump start what I'm fearing will be a lengthy sales process I posted what basically amounts to a coming soon add for our house in the Craig's List Realty for sale section.

Some douche-bag flagged it! This wasn't like 20 people who thought my add violated the CL terms of service its one person who went out of their way to have my post taken down....

How much you wanna bet it was a Realtor whom I've written about and who posts adds to CL all the time?

Okay Rant Over, I'm going to leave the CL add up just in case the 1st place offer falls through.

Bye-Bye Old Scary Stairs

Its Time for a Deconstruction.

Okay, Today's the day to deconstruct the rear stairs....I've been trying to put it off as long as possible but they are getting more and more unstable and I feel veering towards being officially unsafe soooo.....

Just to remind everyone, here's the stairs...with the super slippery unsafe ramp that I slapped on a couple years ago...

Here are all the tools I think that I'm going to need to do the deconstruction. I'm using the term deconstruct instead of demo because I'm not going to be smashing things with 20# sledges. I'll be unscrewing and cutting nails to take the rear stairs apart.

Yes, on the left is a super-fab $20 Harbor Fright sawzall...at that price, its pretty much disposable...I did put a decent demo blade on it and I'm hoping it will last thru this project and the siding project.

After removing the ramp I was treated to this scary sight. The wing-dings that built this stair used untreated plywood as a spacer and it is mostly turned back to dust now.

A couple of taps from the 5# sledge loosened things up enough that I could slide the sawzall in and slice the nails off the railings.

I rigged up the ryobi impact drill to remove the big honking lag bolts holding the posts to the rim board. The lags where a pain to remove with a wrench but with the impact driver they just zipped right out...highly recommend one.

Here's a shot of the right side stringer after I removed the top step. its not nailed to the rim joist its nailed to the post! The post which I just un-bolted! Luckily the post was also nailed in place from behind through the rim joist.

Here's a shot after all the treads had been removed. That left side stringer wasn't even toe nailed to that piece of wood supporting it. It was just sitting on top! Also, see the top right side next to the post? Those pieces of 2by12 nailed to the wall? I can't figure out what the heck they where for. They where not structural at all...I think they were just put there to fill up space...and they nailed the heck outta them...

This piece of wood gave me the most trouble. This is the 'dropped rim joist' and a 2by6 nailer behind it. I'll have to use a dropped rim joist also as the last riser will be this framing but I'm thinking that I can figure out a better way to do this.

Anywho I wrestled with this and it finally swung free...

But it got away from me slightly and smacked the bottle of 'blood vodka' off the top of the bar...man that stuff stinks and the red dye is probably going to stain the patio...

Here's a shot of the demo complete and cleaned up with the wood stacked. It only took me 2 hrs to do which I think is pretty good for a chubby-hubby non-pro with a bad back.

the wood. Most of it looks like all-heart redwood. I'm hoping I can get a Craig's List scavenger to take it away for me.

Next up, I have to lay out and cut the stringers....hope I don't screw up as I didn't buy any extras....