Progress Report:: Stairs and Balcony

Snow day from stairwell.

Warren and I tag-teamed the final pieces of the staircase and balcony in January after he decided to make some last minute adjustments to the design. He added four additional posts and two extra railings along the wall. We had planned on installing simple handrails along the wall but decided it would look more complete if they were timber framed in like the rest of the assembly.

The view from the balcony. Sorry for the construction mess.

Warren did all the pieces of the balcony as well as the new additions to the design. Warren said that all the pieces fit together splendidly. He had to make some adjustments to the upper balcony middle rail, but other than that the joints fell right into place.

Warren perfected the finger-groove process on the railings. They feel real nice on the digits.

For the railings we milled up some true 2"x4" Douglas fir beams. My favorite part is running them through the dimensional planer to perfection. The joinery was pretty simple for these pieces and thus went pretty quick. Drilling the holes for the balusters would have been a nightmare for the angled rails had Warren not put together a slick jig for the job.

Custom jig for the angled holes.

The final step before sanding and oiling was routering the finger grooves and the bottom edge. For the bottom edge we used just a simple 45 degree bit. The finger grooves were a bit trickier; It required two different bits, one for the finger-hold and the other for a rounded top. They both took a big chunk out of the wood and often left divots in the wood. Thus they required a LOT of hand sanding to get perfectly smooth.  

Warren ordered 8-foot long hammered steel rods and cut them to size before installation. There are a couple hundred balusters so Warren had his work cut out for him! It would have been a fraction of the cost to just use smooth rods but felt that would look too institutional. We really like the look of the hammered steel and are so glad we splurged on this detail.

Wood on wood on wood!

Warren's sister Mariah has tasked herself with gluing in each baluster with a special epoxy. She is very diligent and very nearly done with this tedious task. After that we will do a final sanding and then will need to apply a protective barrier on the steps. We haven't decided what product to use yet. 

Sneak peak of the mantle-piece.