Below is a diagram of it. The cool [...]]]>

I’m trying to design some stairs. They are from the basement to the cellar. You enter on the side and it spirrals to the right 90 degrees then follows the wall down. Once it reaches the cellar floor it spirals to the right again 45 degrees.

Below is a diagram of it. The cool thing about the stairs is that the treads and risers are old railroad logs. The treads are going to be oak. The risers are going to be a mixture of all kinds of hardwood. Hopefully it will look good as well as show the great variety of salvaged wood available. I’m getting it from M Fine Lumber in Williamsburg.
(note: we changed our plans and didn’t do this design)

We have these old rickety stairs in the show house. They are good craftsmanship but have had to endure a hundred years of big Italian boys bouncing up and down them. And they are old, old and tired.

We need to keep them, though, because the space is too steep and windy [...]]]>

We have these old rickety stairs in the show house. They are good craftsmanship but have had to endure a hundred years of big Italian boys bouncing up and down them. And they are old, old and tired.

We need to keep them, though, because the space is too steep and windy to be accepted by today’s DOB code regulations. But the old stairs can be grandfathered in. It is more work to salvage them than to rip them out and put in new ones. But I like that I am forced to keep them because deep down I know that is the most sustainable thing to do.

We’ve spent weeks strengthening the stairs from beneath and peeling the ten layers of paint off them. We used a non-toxic paint remover called Peelaway. You put the paste onto the wood and cover it with this special paper and leave it 24 hours. The stuff heats up and the paint becomes good and drips off with the help of a spatula. No dust. No lead issues.