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Posts tagged with “stairs”

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Twenty-four Tips on Stair Building

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A handsome staircase is always the glory of any home interior. It is also subject to many onerous contemporary code requirements, and requires the highest level of finish carpentry in the house. Planning ahead is all important. Many carpenters and not a few architects have heard me say that the best way to design a house is to design the handrail first, then the rest of the stairs, and then the rest of the house will fall in around it. I’m joking—or at least people laugh at me! But after all, how many of us haven’t faced the miserable puzzle of squeezing a code stair into an inconvenient (or worse) space? So it’s important to design the stair before you build it.

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Tips: 111 Comments | Add a Comment

Scribing Stair Skirt Boards Revisited

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When I first read Norm’s article on skirt scribing, four thoughts immediately came to mind:

1) He and I both learned the technique from the same instructor, Don Zepp.
2) Norm’s explanation of the process was spot on.
3) I had a bunch of photos of a skirt board I had installed that I should share with others.
4) I felt exactly like Norm did: Don Zepp was absolutely the best instructor I’ve ever had the good fortune of learning from. Read the full article…

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Traditional Tangent Handrail

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Today, ‘tangent handrail’ is certainly an obscure topic. Until recently, when I taught a seminar on the subject in Seattle, I didn’t think anyone would be interested. I was wrong. At that seminar, hosted by Keith Mathewson of Seattle Fine Woodworking, we had a full house of dedicated craftsmen who came together from all parts of the country for one reason only—to learn something new. Read the full article…

From The Road: 32 Comments | Add a Comment

The Thorsen House

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(with Gary Katz)

Not long ago, Gary Katz and I visited the William Thorsen House in Berkeley, CA. Built in 1909—one year after the Gamble House—the Thorsen House represents the “last of the large and elaborate wooden houses designed by Greene and Greene,” (Edward Bosley), for which Randall Makinson, in his book Greene & Greene: Architecture as a Fine Art, coined the term, “Ultimate Bungalows.” Read the full article…

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Solving Porch Problems

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Start with the Finish and Work Back to the Rough

A lot of carpenters scratch their heads every time they finish framing a porch and start on the stairs. There are so many ways to frame stairs on a porch that it’s hard to make a logical choice, let alone use the same technique twice. That’s why, to work on this story, we gathered together a group of carpenters, all JLC authors: Mike Sloggatt, Frank Caputo, Jed Dixon, Carl Hagstrom, Tom Brewer, and Greg DiBernardo all contributed to this article. Together we worked out a simple system for installing stringers, so you won’t have to scratch your head the next time you start on the stairs. Read the full article…

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Story Poles for Stairs

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A simple tool takes the guess work — and a lot of the brain work — out of making safe comfortable stairs.

Every time I’m asked to bid or to build a set of stairs, I unroll the plans, look at the details, and shake my head. Architects rarely include and often they don’t even have the basic information I need, the few specifications that allow me to build a staircase that will meet the stringent requirements of building code in my area. Read the full article…