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Stair alterations. NOW FINISHED

This is where we don't want anything but evidence of your finest wood butchering in all its glorious, and photograph laden glory. Bring your finished products or WIP's, we love them all, so long as there's pictures, and plenty of 'em!

Stair alterations. NOW FINISHED

Postby Pinch » 27 May 2016, 20:20

Evening All.

I originally attended this lead back in January this year. The enquiry was to alter two separate flights of stairs in the same house. The clients have been working on their house for a while and they're trying to do as much of the work themselves as they can, and, they're doing okay - they're a young couple with a baby. The stairs however is out of their comfort zone. The 1st-2nd floor flight is a straight flight and the lower part of the stair now needs to be a 3 winder arrangement. The ground-to-1st floor flight simply doesn't work in its current state.

Here are 3 photos I took of the 1st-2nd floor flight. You can clearly see a wall has been removed, exposing the side of the stair. It's currently running onto a landing (which you can't see in the photos) which isn't ideal, and therefore, needs turning 90 degrees away from the wall and into the room.
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Here's an outline design of the proposed alteration - excluding any profile details.
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And now the ground-to-1st floor. This stair starts its journey in the pathway of the kitchen area to the dining room. There's no handrail until you reach tread #5/6 and even that isn't very good. The design is very poor and there's no character at all. It needs something. Also, there isn't much space from the 1st tread to the external wall opposite the stair, and as one can walk past the foot of the stair from the kitchen into the dining area, I thought about maximising on the space between the external wall and a stair tread by creating a platform as tread #1, making the path from the kitchen to the dining area wider. But of course, there would now be a platform to step over.

Here's the stair in its current state.
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And here's the outline design - again, excluding any profile detail.
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I submitted these proposals with an estimated price guide and after a few months of thinking about the outline designs, the clients like the 3 tread winder on the 1st floor, but they don't like the platform idea on the ground floor. They would rather stick with the current idea of the ground floor stair, but redesign the first 4-5 treads with large newel posts and some ornate character. I have since designed a replacement of the first 4-5 treads and amended the price. The green light has been granted.

Here's the new design for the ground floor stair - removing the old 4-5 treads and replacing with a new cut-string stair with large ornate newel posts. The existing part of the stair will be carpeted and this is going to continue down to tread #2, which is why I'm using a bespoke base rail over the cut-string arrangement. Tread #1 will be oak. The rest of the exposed stair will be painted. They would now like similar newels etc for the 1st floor stair too.

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There are just a few minor details to confirm and then I shall order up the timber.

I'm looking forward to this one.

Cheers,
8-)
Last edited by Pinch on 02 Sep 2016, 20:14, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Mike G » 27 May 2016, 20:35

Are you building that upper staircase in situ? There's a serious amount of buggeration if you are, I reckon........but without ripping the whole thing out I can't see the alternative. For a start, you're going to have to cut away the existing strings extremely accurately, which will be awkward when they're fixed to a wall. Never mind splicing the new section in place......

I like the cut string on the new section of the lower stair. I can't see a good way of re-designing that stair either. It really isn't a great stair at the moment, but can't think how it could be made much better in principle.
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby kirkpoore1 » 27 May 2016, 22:51

I think both are good improvements. That bottom floor one is butt-ugly and dangerous now. Too bad there was no way to knock out some of the walls and make the stair more visible from the ground floor.

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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 29 May 2016, 15:46

Cheers Mike.

No, I'm going to build it in the shop and then a bit of fettling on site. The wall string will stay as it is (better strength for the stair) and the new string of the 3 winder will be glued/clamped over the top of the existing wall string. There will be some tricky houses to cut into the existing wall string which will obviously be done on site, plus, the houses & mortice into the new newel post to take tread/riser #4 and the outer string.

8-)
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 29 May 2016, 15:48

Cheers Kirk. The bottom stair sure is butt-ugly :D

Glad you're home safe and very cool thread you opened up with the wood stuff. 8-)
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby TrimTheKing » 30 May 2016, 03:36

That lower stair is one of the most fugly things I've ever seen! How many rooms have been moved around to expose that as it is now??

As Mike said, ugly as sin but what you've proposed is about all I could possibly think of to pretty it up at all.

Cheers
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby meccarroll » 14 Jun 2016, 19:08

Looks like the bottom entrance will be greatly enhanced once the new treads, balusters and newels have been fit. Have you managed to make any further progress?

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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 18 Jun 2016, 19:23

TrimTheKing wrote:That lower stair is one of the most fugly things I've ever seen! How many rooms have been moved around to expose that as it is now??

As Mike said, ugly as sin but what you've proposed is about all I could possibly think of to pretty it up at all.

Cheers
Mark


Cheers Mark - indeed chap. 8-)
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 18 Jun 2016, 19:24

meccarroll wrote:Looks like the bottom entrance will be greatly enhanced once the new treads, balusters and newels have been fit. Have you managed to make any further progress?

Mark


Cheers Mark, yes, I amended the design slightly as requested - below. The deposit has been paid and I shall make a start sometime this coming week. 8-)
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 18 Jun 2016, 19:37

I've amended the design slightly as requested by the clients and all going well, I shall make a start during the coming week.

These drawings below are from which I shall make.

Firstly, the ground-to-1st floor stair alteration. The amendment was pusing the large newel posts further back into the stair, allowing more flowing space through the walk-by at the foot of the stairs.

PLAN
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FRONT ELEVATION
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SIDE ELEVATION
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And here's the 1st-to-2nd floor stair. I have somehow off-centred the flute detail in the upper newels. This is meant to be centred, so please ignore this detail.

PLAN
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SIDE ELEVATION
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END ELEVATION
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This is the detail for the ground floor stair cut string. As mentioned above, the clients want to fit carpet from tread #2 upwards and so I'm including a bespoke base rail for the spindles so the carpet has an edge to be fitted to.
Image

I'll report back once I've made a start. The newels are going to be interesting to make. 8-)

Cheers,

:obscene-drinkingcheers:

PS: Mrs P is away this weekend, so it's the houndies, fridge full of beer and me infront of the footy tonight. Yippadeedoodah!!

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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Andyp » 18 Jun 2016, 20:08

Watching footie on my own, I find, lacks atmosphere. I'll try and be in the village bar des sports on monday night. Might go elsewhere if we have to play les bleus though :D

Shame to see Iceland concede in dying minutes especially after that portugese spoilt brat could not find a nice word after their match. I'll be cheering on Austria this evening.
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 18 Jun 2016, 20:14

Yes indeed - I'm with you on that one.

I was impressed with Poland against Germany the other evening. They should have won 2-0.

And what about Spain last night - pretty darn good eh.

I missed the England match, but Mrs kept phoning me with updates :D
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Andyp » 18 Jun 2016, 20:19

Indeed, spain are my 3rd team, after england, and anyone against France and now portugal :D
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 28 Jun 2016, 20:11

Andyp wrote:Indeed, spain are my 3rd team, after england, and anyone against France and now portugal :D


They've gone chap!
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 28 Jun 2016, 20:14

Here's the timber for the newel posts - excluding the oak. I'm going to start this in the next day or so.

Image

Image

Image

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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 26 Jul 2016, 19:23

:shock: It's been a while since I started this project - good job my clients are in no rush. I had a couple of emergencies to do and I've had to shelve this work for the last few weeks. Anyways, I'm now on it and I worked through the last weekend to start the catch-up process, and making good progress. I haven't taken too many photos as I've been up against it.

After cleaning up the prepared timber (whitewood), I started to work on the panelled face frames for the full newel posts; that's 4 frames per post (complete clad/wrap around); 4 newels; = 16 face frames.

After cutting the stiles to length, I set up the router with the scotia bit and machined away.
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And here are all 32 stiles now machined.
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I also glued some pieces together to form the top, middle and bottom rails.
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That was as far as I got about 3 weeks ago. During the last weekend, I made and glue assembled all 16 face-frames and yesterday/today, I have glued them onto the 4" core of the newel posts.

Here are all 4 full newel posts with the panelled face-frames attached - measuring 132mm square. I've started at the tops of the newels because all the face-frames are at the same lengths/heights. I shall cut the newels to their actual lengths tomorrow. I'm also ready to start making/fitting the two-tiered plinths as well, and then the caps.

Image

Report back very soon.

Cheers,

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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Malc2098 » 26 Jul 2016, 20:25

Looking nice!
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 27 Jul 2016, 07:11

Cheers Malc. 8-)
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Commander » 28 Jul 2016, 06:46

Nice work Paul, I'm excited to see how this one turns out!
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 29 Jul 2016, 19:46

Commander wrote:Nice work Paul, I'm excited to see how this one turns out!


Thanks Erich 8-)
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 29 Jul 2016, 20:08

A quick update:

I've got to make a site visit tomorrow to check a couple of dimensions, which is a pain because it's 45 miles away. But, no worries, I shall enjoy the journey and I might even stop for a spot of lunch somewhere 8-)

Here are all 4 full newels and 3 half newels. Only the 2 full newels on the far right are finished and ready to start making the ground floor stair alteration. The 2 full newels in the foreground are for the 1st floor and not finished. (These are now going to be the same as the ground floor newels and are therefore different to the above drawings). The 3 in between are the half newels and these too are not quite finished.
Image

Here are the 3 half newels. You can just see the stopped chamfer detail which will also be included in the spindles. I just have the caps to make for these half jobbies. The two full newels on the right are for the ground floor stair.
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The 3 half jobbies a bit closer.
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And the full newels a bit closer. Each of these posts consist of 71 separate pieces of timber. The bottom plinths are 210mm square.
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That's it for now. I'll report back when I start setting out and making the stairs.

Ta very much.
8-)

Beer night tonight.

:obscene-drinkingcheers:

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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Malc2098 » 29 Jul 2016, 20:55

I'm enjoying this one! Looking good!
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Mike G » 29 Jul 2016, 20:58

71 pieces! Blimey........
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 30 Jul 2016, 09:48

Malc2098 wrote:I'm enjoying this one! Looking good!


Cheers Malc 8-)
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Re: Stair alterations.

Postby Pinch » 30 Jul 2016, 09:49

Mike G wrote:71 pieces! Blimey........


Cheers Mike 8-)

Yes, quite a few bits eh :shock:
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