Seeking OSHA Approval

Seriously scary?  Yup.  Can you see the drop from the very top (the white is the door from the kitchen swinging out) to the staircase.  That is because Steve was at it again this weekend.  Doing more prep for the new stairs.  He is trying to do all he can without totally making havoc on our house-at least for as long as possible. He actually took down the wall next to the basement stairs and detached the stairs so that they are independent of all else.  Scares the shitzies out of me to walk down the stairs now but at least I have access to the basement. And we're getting closer to new stairs and a new kitchen.

After much hymming and haa-ing, doing a ton of research on-line and talking with his brother who has a construction background, Steve has decided that he is going to rebuild our stairs on his own.  Apparently most of the really hard part of stairs is having a good plan (he has everything drawn up in CAD) and being precise (he's an engineer so yes and yes). 

yikes, a piece of knob and tube just hanging there exposed....we need an electrician stat!

City of Portland also has a bunch of great resources on-line for our local stair codes so that has been really helpful.  Our one question is what the thickness of the tread needs to be?  We can't find a great answer anywhere and are debating between 3/4" or a true 1".  Anyone know?

In prep for these new stairs, I emptied out the built-in that will need to be moved to make way for the new stairs.  Steve hopes to start this weekend, which will entail first carefully detaching/moving the dining room built-in and then demo'ing the attic stairs before starting to build the stringers for upstairs.  He plans to just swap around the basement stairs (this is easy with them being moveable and all) to their new placement until he is able to rebuild them.

After Steve does the basic build, we plan to hire a contractor to lay white oak going upstairs and marmoleum down to the basement.  I want to see if it would be more cost effective for us to use the marmoleum click system (they have parts for stairs) or have a professional lay the marmoleum sheets for us.

BASIC ANATOMY OF STAIRS

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