Interior Rustic Stairs

Ade and his dad took a brief break from the rigors of plumbing and electrical work to construct the "open" stair system that will connect the first and second floor of our home. This needed to be done before we could get our rough framing inspection, so it was something that had to be done anyhow. We received solid pine stringers and treads from Rapid River Rustic as a part of our log home package. The stringers and treads themselves were rectangular (verses half log round like many loggies prefer for their rustic look) with rough hand hewn facing. This was a nice blend for us of contemporary verses rustic. They constructed templates for everything before beginning and practiced on scrap lumber since there was little room for error. Bill constructed what our stairs should look like, angle, rise over run, etc. using his home CAD software (this is where Ade gets his engineering and mathematical mind from). From what I understand, stairs are a difficult thing to do, even for those who make the construction world their career. Anyhow, the strings each had the appropriate angle of "bird mouth notching" cut out at the bottom to straddle the subfloor opening into the basement. The tops of the stringers had enough cut flush so that they rest up against the LVL at the top of the stairwell opening on the second floor (and to allow for enough height for the hardwood flooring). They tops of the stringers will be bolted in later incorporating the solid cedar newels that will be at the top of the stairs here for the railings and spindles to attach to. Ade decided to use mortise and tenon joinery for the treads into the stringers (simple and strong). This took quite a bit of time. Ade used quite a bit of construction adhesive when wedging the tenon into the mortise. We finish sanded the sides of the stringers and will do the same thing with the treads once construction traffic is done to remove any scuff marks, etc.