Stairs from heii - Almost

In going over some of good- bad- and I won't there jobs I did this year, this was one, I did this summer, that I'll remember.
Got a call from my supplier to call this fellow near me on a stair job. He started out telling me that he had hired a carpenter to some remodeling and stairs. After getting to a point, the carpenter was a no-show. He's in a bind and can I finish--oh boy !. Apparently the stairs originally had walls on both sides that were removed. He wanted the stairs to appear curved so they( I think now the homeowner was the carpenter ) cut the stringers, racked the top half of the length and then put the bottom half back square. Resulting in regular treads on first half and parallelogram treads on the top half. I'd never seen parallelogram treads on a residentual stairs, let alone installed them. They had also removed the center stringer and installed rises and 1' pine treads, and as you walk up the stairs you bounced on every step. I had an idea, but I also called my supplier to stop by to get my list for a price. My supplier also has an engineering degree, but couldn't do the 9-5 40 hr. thing, and I wanted a second opinion on a fix. He thought my idea of using 1 1/16" Oak treads and pinning to risers would work good, since they had built walls under stringers and headers at the center joints, that with my method would make a good strong stair. So I demo'ed ll his stuff and piched it. Generally when stairs make a turn there is a landing or a winder tread, this had neither. The HO had a pile of parts, rail, balusters, but much missing and had a pile of all the wrong fittings.
Well I got skirts, treads, and lower trim on then off to the balcony, before installing the newells, and rail. They had newell posts on balcony area, but all in the wrong places, and lag bolted from below, before drywalling lower ceiling, yea fun to remove. They had also installed laminate flooring that ran to the drywall at the edge of balcony ( did't have a clue how they were going to terminate it. What I did was to install a band board of 1x4, measure in to allow for a landing cap and double taped straight edges down 5/16 under sized from my lay-out. routed it off. Then cut a rabbet on landing cap to overlay the floor. Balcony's are generally layed out to common angles, and fittings are made in these , not his, from stairs it was 56*, 37*, 44* and ended at a 50 something , had to play with everything.
There were times, like every day when I though , what did you get youself into -- then I figured it was just one of life's skill and knowledge tests.
I had borrowed an X girlfriends camera, so I don't know why pics are so bad, maybe it was hexed.
1. full view from the side
2. going up ,showing turn
3.long shot from far side of balcony
4. fun to do top fitting
5. balcony

Roger


One good thing that happened while doing this job, was a neighbor ( around corner 2 houses down ) stopped by a couple times , and wanted me to stop by and look at remodeling his stairs. A nice long, low rise stairs that just begged for a good design and remodeling. That one I started a month later , and really nice was it's 2 miles from home.

Looks like you worked some nice magic to get that nightmare under control. Boy it really does su*k to finish someone else's mistake. Well done, Roger.

Richard

I'm sure you've done it before too, fixing somebody else's sh--. It also costs more in the bill for fixing up, then starting fresh, and I've got no shame in that department.
Roger

You would think at our age we would be smart enough to walk away from this stuff. I think it has to do with satisfying our own ego. It seems like the nightmares always find me. LOL.

Richard

Great job Roger, Thanks for sharing!:D

Stairs look great Roger. Great work.

Yow, looks like we have yet another stair master at the Creek!!! You guys simply amaze me with your work and craftsmanship!:) Great job on the project, Roger and ditto to what Richard said about trying to fix a nightmare started by another "carpenter"!:mad: :) :cool:

Geat Job Roger,
Is that a foot in the first Pic????
New or old Girlfriend?????

Looks great Roger. Looks like it turned out A-OK:)

I've been in those positions before too. I dread those jobs.:rolleyes:

But they pay the bills, and make a customer happier.:)

Woah! I looked at the photos first and thought "what the <bleep> is going on?" It makes slightly more sense that it's a remodeling. Good thing that the inspector didn't object to the parallelogram treads. (Off the top of my head, I can't think of a reason that they wouldn't be acceptable by standard building code, but I'll try to remember to check when I get into the office tomorrow.) Lots of things bug me about the setup that you got handed - the 'solid mass' of stairs projecting into the high-ceiling space, the funky bend, and the way that the stairs run you straight into that 'pier'. But you did a nice job with an awkward situation.

Richard-- Yea it's something like ego. It's when you run into something messed up ,and say " hey it's me, I can fix it". Sometimes famous last words. We've got a saying in Fl.-- When you're up to your a$$ in aligators, it's important to remember, you just came here to drain the swamp.

Tyler--- Never noticed the leg before, It's the lady of the house's leg. Must have been kidding around, or I maybe missed a cue, gee and it's been a long time.

Tom--- No nothing wrong with the code and parallelogram treads, their short angles are still 1 1/4" beyond skirtboards. The funky bend, well normaly should have a landing or winder tread, but the treads are all the same depth & parallel to the risers, --thats the important thing. When you rack the stringers, there is a difference in length to make up, and I carried it up to the 2nd fl. landing, and had to build it out on the right side by about 1 1/4", which only added to balcony to landing angle, but still no code issue.
And -no- they don't run straight into a pier, thats ( in pic 4 ) 2 walls forming a small hall going to a powder room . The stairs are just slightly off center of it , and the photo is a little of a depth of field " optical delusion", the bottom of the stairs is really a little over 6' from the opening.

Roger