#3 Part 2- Stairway To... Well...

If you've stopped by our little blog more than once, you might remember our arch nemesis- the steps. 

We inherited with this house a huge central staircase that runs through the middle of the house, and brings together all crazy 8 half levels.  Here's the view down from them when we were up painting the scary high heights of the loft.

And these weren't just any stairs, but some retro floating steps, some wrapped in runners, and a couple of flights wrapped in full carpet.  And then some time along the way, the previous owners decided that the best way to make these steps safe for their family, was to tack chicken wire to the back of them.

Now I'm certainly not judging a family's attempt at preventing their children and pets from plunging to their inevitable death, but chicken wire?  Really?

The Hubs took on this project as his personal mission, and if you remember, it didn't go very well.  (Let me apologize for the Hub's language in advance if you click on that link. I clearly have no control over that man.)

So after about two months of what I like to call his "Anger Break," I finally gave in and got back to work on this project by myself.  After all, there wasn't actually too much left to do.  I just needed to cut and tack in the trim pieces so that this:

Could look like this:

Then there was just the matter of the top 2 steps, which met up with carpet in our Loft and our Master Bedroom. 

First I had to chip back the subfloor so that I could fit on my bullnose transition.

Then I had to remove the Sheetrock that was attached to the last stair face.

 Super messy.

It was 10 in the morning on a Saturday.  My coffee was always close.  Very close.

Then I could put on the new wood stair riser I cut to fit.

Of course Ryder-man helped.  He's never far from any remodel in this house. All we had left to go was place in the bull-nose pieces. 

All we have left is some stain to make everything the same color and some poly.  Which I realize now makes it sound like it will be easy and I'll get to it right away.  But maybe I'll go on strike again and see if the Hubs will step up to the challenge.  It's going to be a long winter.