A Proper Staircase

And here is the last in our series entitled Shit I Forgot To Actually Publish Even Though I Wrote It Like Six Months Ago. Actually, I just amended it with the actual recent progress, so it’s kind of almost up to date. Also, I promise to post properly about the new office which I’m literally now procrastinating about finishing by doing this post instead.

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As part of the preparation for getting signed off as a legitimate dwelling house (as opposed to a perpetual building site) we needed a proper, legitimate staircase. Ben to the rescue as usual.

The hole in the floor needed opening up and the floor itself making flat and level-ish.

Ben’s expert 3D imagination figured out how to insert all the necessary turning steps and hold everything up from existing sturcture.

We started out with a stack of four steps at the bottom, but the headroom was a problem, with a very immovable beam above the bottom two steps.

So in the end we ditched that system, moved the whole staircase down and added two kite steps at the top and two at the bottom.

It was utter chaos, of course.

But before I knew it, I was running up and down a proper staircase.

There are plans to clad them in the Canadian Maple flooring I have lying around, but those have fallen by the wayside in the traditional way, to be picked up, um, sometime.

Meanwhile, I tidied up and plasterboarded the wall and ceiling around it and stuck in some temporary safety slats.

And of course, for temporary, read long-term temporary, possibly permanent.

…except, here we are today with the actual banister made from that rowan tree you may remember me stripping the bark off a few posts ago.

This bit was so great, Julian and I just went to Vermont to visit my parents and when we got back there was a banister and the steps were covered in the aforementioned Canadian maple floorboards.

As usual, Ben did a lovely job and was pleased to be left alone to make as much of a mess as he liked while doing it.

I love the zig-zag stair pattern.

I love the organic, local (like 30 meters away local) newel post and banister.

And I super-love the acorn carved on it by Ben.

Right, I’m off to paint that ceiling.