Stairs are finally in

After a lot of false starts, the main staircase is in place. The treads are old planks salvaged from a barn somewhere in upstate New York. They're 3 inches thick.

Once the drywall is up, I'll sand and apply polyurethane to the treads, then secure them. Once that's done, a railing will be installed that will sit on the outer edge of each tread.

Stairs are in, BUT...

They're not right. They look awesome. Too bad they're the wrong measurements.

When I walked in this morning I saw Lou, my contractor, standing on the third step, his head inches from the support beam in the ceiling. That means the clearance is bad, and there's no way that would pass inspection. After trying to figure out what the hell went wrong, we realized that the run of each step was 11 inches, rather than 9 inches. That added an extra two feet to the whole length of the stairs. See where the diagram says unit run? That's what I'm talking about.

So what's the fix? I called up Peter, the ironworker. He came over to look. The whole thing will have to be disassembled and re-welded with the 9 inch run, rather than the 11 inch run.

Nothing goes smoothly.

How hard is it to get a number right?

Nothing goes smoothly (except the things you don't notice). I ordered a sign for my house number: 425 1/2. I triple checked the order to make sure the number was correct, then I sent it off. Four weeks later the sign arrives: 425. No 1/2. They made another one for free, of course. This one took another six weeks to arrive. Time has become meaningless.

Stairs

The iron workers start tomorrow on welding the main staircase, in the house. Not sure what the process is exactly, but we had to clear out all the trash from the living room and remove anything flammable. Should be interesting.

Electric's done

Now they're doing the rest of the plumbing. The iron shop is fabricating the main staircase now. Once that's installed, we can get the electric and plumbing inspections completed, then will come the drywall. Moving along...