Building the Landing
Hello Friends. In the last time since I wrote I have been plugging away on the house. With the chandelier up in my last post I can now start on finishing up the stairway.
The upper area landing as you may or might not remember was a very small room when I moved into the house. You can see what it looked like when I first moved in here: Landing Before
When the house was duplexed the stairway was changed around and the upper area was turned into a small bedroom. It has been so long since it was a small bedroom that I actually forgot what it looked like. A room of pink carpet, missing and hidden windows and awful drop ceiling.
That small shift in the wall is where the railing would have gone. Hidden in that wall was the missing stained glass window. After having the salvaged railings and spindles which you can see here : Opening up the Staircase , I was left with a large landing with no spindles, trim or railings. When I moved into the house there was a very small maybe 2 foot section at the top of the stairs with the original railing and spindles. Can you believe that the salvage spindles I found and built in matched the original? Same as the railing. Since the salvage came from the neighborhood, I'm assuming that it must have been milled at the same lumber yard, or a common pattern. Maybe even milled by the Keller family mill that also built my house. Anyway once I had the landing open how was I to finish it. Well another small but interesting clue was left behind. A single oak panel was found buried in the duplex conversion which told me what was there.
These panels went below the spindles and rail to finish off where the floor joists are. This was not only very exciting to find to know what was there, but it was also incredibly easy to reproduce as it was a oak back board with oak side pieces and then oak trim in the panel areas. Easy breezy. The old piece was quite a bit thicker than lumber of todays dimensions. This was important to match the thickness as close as possible because it would fit neatly into the other trim that was already on the salvage staircase that I had in. Mind you I couldn't start any of this until I had the chandelier all up because I had built wood scaffolding that was screwed into the floor joist that was behind the trim. As you old house folks know, you often can't start one project until completing another one. So with that being said it was time to start building the panels.
You can see my temporary scaffolding in the photo above needed to reach the ceiling.
I had to first fir out the area to fir inside the hole that is created on the upper photo. I need the new panels to fit in where the salvage trim ends. Mind you this is 11 feet long by 13" wide so a large section.
After the plywood firing went in next came the oak. I considered locating a big piece of oak that would be the 11 ft x 13" wide but it was nearly impossible to find. Then I though why do I need a piece that big even when so much of it was going to be hidden behind the vertical oak pieces of the panels. So I found some boards that were wide enough to fit the 13" wide (I had to cut them down width wise) and then I calculated where these pieces could butt up so that the seam would be covered. This also meant calculating how many panels I was to have. After some chicken scratch drawings and endless math calculations in my head (I'm not a huge fan of math) I figured it all out and began putting the 3/4" oak back pieces up.
As you can see the last piece fit in really ugly. Everything in this old house is out of plumb. I thought I could scribe the wood to the wall to make the piece fit better, but again I figured it would all be covered and one would never know. So here is proof of my sometimes not great craftsmanship. I'm an amateur, entirely self taught and so I try my best. Don't judge me too harshly.
After this came the oak strips to the top, bottom and sides to make the panels.
Next came the trim to put in the panels. I couldn't find the exact molding that was in the original, but the one I did find fit great and really made the panels.
With the panels done it was time to start on the part where the spindles and railing would go. Based on what I had in the house it was simply 2 pieces of 1" oak nailed together with a shoe molding that received the spindles. The one small section that I found in the house was plain which lead me to think that that piece was from the duplex conversion since the other baseboards and boards on the stairs all have the same 3 grooves on them.
So going on a hunch I made the boards with the 3 grooves. This was NOT a fun project to make. Why you make ask? Because I needed to cut 3 precise grooves on the boards with my table saw (not a big job in theory because I have the blades to cut the grooves) that were 11 feet long. And I needed to cut 2 of these boards. Not only did I have to cut these two boards but to make them a full 2" thick I would have to sandwich plywood in the middle and then glue, nail and clamp it all together. This made for one heavy piece of wood. Oh did I mention I had to cut this and do this all myself? Let me tell you the saw horses with the rollers on them made all the difference!
All nailed in and ready for more trim. You might notice there is a nice wood board against the wall that receives the baseboard. I found this at the salvage yard rather than just run the wood directly into the wall.
The salvage piece I bought. I just bought the one piece of wood and sanded it to clean it up.
Next I had to address the spindle problem and I had no spindles, couldn't find anything close enough to match that I was happy with and couldn't find anyone to turn matching spindles for a price I could afford. I reached out to some friends and I got a recommendation that was able to make it come true. The company I found Century Porch Post made my dream come true for a very fair price. I sent them one of the original spindles I had and 2 weeks later they sent me a beautiful batch of matching spindles.
The next step will be the railing. Again I could not find anywhere that had a railing that was chunky enough to match the old stuff so I went to my local lumber yard and they are milling it as I write this entry.
The upper area landing as you may or might not remember was a very small room when I moved into the house. You can see what it looked like when I first moved in here: Landing Before
When the house was duplexed the stairway was changed around and the upper area was turned into a small bedroom. It has been so long since it was a small bedroom that I actually forgot what it looked like. A room of pink carpet, missing and hidden windows and awful drop ceiling.
That small shift in the wall is where the railing would have gone. Hidden in that wall was the missing stained glass window. After having the salvaged railings and spindles which you can see here : Opening up the Staircase , I was left with a large landing with no spindles, trim or railings. When I moved into the house there was a very small maybe 2 foot section at the top of the stairs with the original railing and spindles. Can you believe that the salvage spindles I found and built in matched the original? Same as the railing. Since the salvage came from the neighborhood, I'm assuming that it must have been milled at the same lumber yard, or a common pattern. Maybe even milled by the Keller family mill that also built my house. Anyway once I had the landing open how was I to finish it. Well another small but interesting clue was left behind. A single oak panel was found buried in the duplex conversion which told me what was there.
These panels went below the spindles and rail to finish off where the floor joists are. This was not only very exciting to find to know what was there, but it was also incredibly easy to reproduce as it was a oak back board with oak side pieces and then oak trim in the panel areas. Easy breezy. The old piece was quite a bit thicker than lumber of todays dimensions. This was important to match the thickness as close as possible because it would fit neatly into the other trim that was already on the salvage staircase that I had in. Mind you I couldn't start any of this until I had the chandelier all up because I had built wood scaffolding that was screwed into the floor joist that was behind the trim. As you old house folks know, you often can't start one project until completing another one. So with that being said it was time to start building the panels.
You can see my temporary scaffolding in the photo above needed to reach the ceiling.
I had to first fir out the area to fir inside the hole that is created on the upper photo. I need the new panels to fit in where the salvage trim ends. Mind you this is 11 feet long by 13" wide so a large section.
After the plywood firing went in next came the oak. I considered locating a big piece of oak that would be the 11 ft x 13" wide but it was nearly impossible to find. Then I though why do I need a piece that big even when so much of it was going to be hidden behind the vertical oak pieces of the panels. So I found some boards that were wide enough to fit the 13" wide (I had to cut them down width wise) and then I calculated where these pieces could butt up so that the seam would be covered. This also meant calculating how many panels I was to have. After some chicken scratch drawings and endless math calculations in my head (I'm not a huge fan of math) I figured it all out and began putting the 3/4" oak back pieces up.
As you can see the last piece fit in really ugly. Everything in this old house is out of plumb. I thought I could scribe the wood to the wall to make the piece fit better, but again I figured it would all be covered and one would never know. So here is proof of my sometimes not great craftsmanship. I'm an amateur, entirely self taught and so I try my best. Don't judge me too harshly.
After this came the oak strips to the top, bottom and sides to make the panels.
Next came the trim to put in the panels. I couldn't find the exact molding that was in the original, but the one I did find fit great and really made the panels.
With the panels done it was time to start on the part where the spindles and railing would go. Based on what I had in the house it was simply 2 pieces of 1" oak nailed together with a shoe molding that received the spindles. The one small section that I found in the house was plain which lead me to think that that piece was from the duplex conversion since the other baseboards and boards on the stairs all have the same 3 grooves on them.
So going on a hunch I made the boards with the 3 grooves. This was NOT a fun project to make. Why you make ask? Because I needed to cut 3 precise grooves on the boards with my table saw (not a big job in theory because I have the blades to cut the grooves) that were 11 feet long. And I needed to cut 2 of these boards. Not only did I have to cut these two boards but to make them a full 2" thick I would have to sandwich plywood in the middle and then glue, nail and clamp it all together. This made for one heavy piece of wood. Oh did I mention I had to cut this and do this all myself? Let me tell you the saw horses with the rollers on them made all the difference!
All nailed in and ready for more trim. You might notice there is a nice wood board against the wall that receives the baseboard. I found this at the salvage yard rather than just run the wood directly into the wall.
Next I had to address the spindle problem and I had no spindles, couldn't find anything close enough to match that I was happy with and couldn't find anyone to turn matching spindles for a price I could afford. I reached out to some friends and I got a recommendation that was able to make it come true. The company I found Century Porch Post made my dream come true for a very fair price. I sent them one of the original spindles I had and 2 weeks later they sent me a beautiful batch of matching spindles.
The next step will be the railing. Again I could not find anywhere that had a railing that was chunky enough to match the old stuff so I went to my local lumber yard and they are milling it as I write this entry.
So within the next week or so I should have my railing and be able to assemble it with the spindles. In the meantime I have lots of small trim work on the stairs to do. Sadly I seem to have caught a cold and have been laid up for a few days. Hopefully soon I'll be on the mend to get back to putting this project together. While I am so excited to put it all together I fear the day that is coming when I have to do all the staining and matching the old with the new.
Thanks for reading friends and speak soon!
Oh! This is all so thrilling!
ReplyDeleteI love that you are going to such effort to make everything look right.
When you are done, it will not look like you did anything! The best kind of compliment!
Thanks Ross. So much work but my hope is that it looks like it has always been there.
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