Loft Conversion

The original strings were routed from 1" MDF using an exact size ply template and a cutter with a top bearing for following the template. All in all it took about a day and a half to chop out all of the rebates. With 20/20 hindsight there are a few lessons learnt here. The top bearing following cutter would have worked better with a thicker template, the time spent taking the bigger 1/2" router out of the table and using that would have soon been recovered with the reduction of time to route, and MDF is a pain to route!

The top newel cut from some 4x4" PAR softwood. This is fixed to the top landing joist via screws and a rebate.

The bottom newel is even taller since this has a extra step to accommodate on the exiting bottom landing. A short section of string is tennoned into the newels.

Once all the strings and newels are fixed, marked out, and all rebates are cut the treads and risers can now be fixed. These are glued and "wedged" into place with lots of softwood wedges which I cut on the table saw from spare bits of tile batten. Each of the step rebates tapers toward the front of each tread, and the top of each rise. The wedges are glued up and then hammered firmly into each rebate behind each step. This has the effect of making sure each step is very firmly jammed into each rebate with no ability to move, squeak, or rattle. The top of each rise also sits in a rebate in the underside of each tread with the base being screwed to the back of each riser. For good measure a section of aris rail is then glued and screwed to the back of each step. This helps maintain a very strong flight of steps since the design transfers the load placed onto any one step, on to several adjacent steps. The finishing touch is a section of softwood scotia molding which is glued up and then air nailed to the underside of each nosing. This gives the nose of each step a little more support and eliminates one more source of squeaks.

The result! Oh what luxury to be able to get into the new story without the need of a ladder! Still lots of finishing off to be done (capping, spindles, hand rail, decorative newel posts etc). but a big step (groan!) forward none the less.

Stairs The most complex bit of joinery in the whole project is the staircase. Quotes to have these built seemed to be coming in at a about £800, but that did not include fitting (or any banisters etc). Hence I thought this would be a fun bit to have a stab at.
A bit of climbing on the banisters below, some nifty work with a saw (and loads of work with a vacuum cleaner after!), and we have a new way into the roof!
The first stage to making stairs is to work out how many you need and what size each should be. This the architect had already done. We spotted where he had measured/estimated the overall length (i.e. the "going") of the stairs and also the overall height (or "rise") incorrectly (which to be fair is almost impossible to do util the ceiling is removed and the space made visible) and corrected for that. What we did not spot was his inability to count! Hence this was the first cockup of the project. Having built strings (i.e. the side bits of a staircase) to accommodate the steps as shown on the plans, and having set the rise of each step to be equal to the overall height divided by 12 (the number of rises specified on the plan) we found our new staircase was a whole step too tall! What we had not spotted until too late was the plan as drawn actually required 13 rises not 12. Hence I set about producing new strings, this time with the big router (a Freud FT2000) using a template guide bush and a new template cut to allow for the offset of the guide bush. I also switched to PAR softwood which is a whole lot nicer to work with. The mistake took the total materials bill for the structural bit of the stairs up to about £200 rather than the anticipated £150, but still a gave a saving over the cost of outsourcing this bit of the build. It was also a blessing in disguise since I much prefer the result achieved with softwood strings. The first job once the strings were done was to fix the outside, top and bottom sections to the wall. Lots of 4" screws will keep these firmly in place. Since the staircase has to turn two corners (or have two quarter "winders" as they say), the string on the other end of the steps is actually quite short since many of the steps will need to fix to a newel post instead. Since the newels will need to be quite long it was simplest to make the base sections from 4x4" PAR softwood, but then fit nice turned posts to finish of the top section later. The opposite string was screwed to the wall with plenty of 4" screws into a couple of brown rawl plugs (each). Getting the basic staircase in place is obviously the main goal, in that you now have easy access to the loft space, and in fact the rooms can be made habitable and used. Obviously one needs to take care since there are no handrails!	The original strings were routed from 1" MDF using an exact size ply template and a cutter with a top bearing for following the template. All in all it took about a day and a half to chop out all of the rebates. With 20/20 hindsight there are a few lessons learnt here. The top bearing following cutter would have worked better with a thicker template, the time spent taking the bigger 1/2" router out of the table and using that would have soon been recovered with the reduction of time to route, and MDF is a pain to route! The top newel cut from some 4x4" PAR softwood. This is fixed to the top landing joist via screws and a rebate. The bottom newel is even taller since this has a extra step to accommodate on the exiting bottom landing. A short section of string is tennoned into the newels. Once all the strings and newels are fixed, marked out, and all rebates are cut the treads and risers can now be fixed. These are glued and "wedged" into place with lots of softwood wedges which I cut on the table saw from spare bits of tile batten. Each of the step rebates tapers toward the front of each tread, and the top of each rise. The wedges are glued up and then hammered firmly into each rebate behind each step. This has the effect of making sure each step is very firmly jammed into each rebate with no ability to move, squeak, or rattle. The top of each rise also sits in a rebate in the underside of each tread with the base being screwed to the back of each riser. For good measure a section of aris rail is then glued and screwed to the back of each step. This helps maintain a very strong flight of steps since the design transfers the load placed onto any one step, on to several adjacent steps. The finishing touch is a section of softwood scotia molding which is glued up and then air nailed to the underside of each nosing. This gives the nose of each step a little more support and eliminates one more source of squeaks. The result! Oh what luxury to be able to get into the new story without the need of a ladder! Still lots of finishing off to be done (capping, spindles, hand rail, decorative newel posts etc). but a big step (groan!) forward none the less.
	The final stage is to add the balustrading To make everything match all the existing banisters from the ground floor staircase were also ripped out and replaced with ones that match. Three turned newel posts were installed. These simply plug into 2" wide holes drilled down into the newel post with an expansive bit. The "balls" then go on top in the same way (you could have "acorns" if preferred - they come separately). The handrail is then tennoned into the newels, and the spindles cut and inserted. The spindles (pack of 30 from Screwfix) are glued and nailed in place at the base, and top. They are also held by small packing pieces that fit into the underside of the handrail rebate. Each of the two upper sets of railings are cunningly designed as panels. The idea being that you take out a handful of screws and then you can unplug the entire panel from the staircase to open up the space. This makes getting large items of furniture up and down the stairs possible. Finished result with decoration done, and carpet down. The addition of a "pigs ear" handrail makes up for not having full length banisters.