Skirt boards running down each side of the rough stairwell.

Ok, just so you don’t think I was Johnny-on-the-spot finishing things up, several months would pass before I got around to the treads and risers. The thing about finish work is, it’s what you see, so you have to think about how you want it to look. And that can take some time.

I knew I wanted oak treads. In fact, I had purchased the treads a few years back at Home Depot, when I saw them in an end-cap display, not realizing they always carry them in the aisles. They’re 1″ thick (well, really they’re 31/32″- and that makes a difference when you have eleven steps, because if you don’t account for it, you’ll be off almost 1/2″ from top to bottom), and they’re solid oak, but there’s a core of glued up oak pieces veneered with a 1/8″ oak finish. The bullnose is already cut. So I’ve had them forever, and they’ve always been in the way as I worked on other stuff, and I’ve probably moved them around the job site fifteen times, including moving them upstairs and back down again. They’re heavy.

But the risers were a different matter. White painted risers with oak treads is common, and I don’t dislike the look, so I considered it for a time. It would have been a little cheaper, because you can use a less expensive wood like poplar. At one point, I committed to that idea once and bought the poplar, but then had second thoughts and returned it. The white riser has a colonial-ish look to it, which I didn’t want. And, I guess I’m a sucker for oak.

So I went back to Home Depot and picked through the stacks of nice 1″x10″x12′ (really 3/4″ x 9 1/2″ x 12′ – remember dimensional lumber?) oak boards and found a few that were knot-free and took them home and ripped them down on the table saw.

WARNING: The following paragraph contains content that may haunt your dreams. Read at your own peril. And, of course, parental discretion is strongly advised.

One of challenges with building stairs in place (as opposed to building the unit and then setting it into place, which gives you a nice fit but wasn’t an option due to my narrow and access-restricted stairwell), something that caused great anxiety in the lead-up to tread & riser work, is… oh, I just can’t bring myself to say it yet. Let’s say, for instance, that you cut a tread and it fits snugly into place. Then you cut a riser, but it’s a tad wide. Why would it be wide? Well, the skirt board isn’t a perfect surface, and it’s attached to drywall and framing that carry their own irregularities. So things are always a little out of whack. You tap the riser into place. And it fits snugly. Maybe too snugly. Then you look at the tread you just put in and there are… gaps on the sides. Yes, I said it. Gaps. Egde gaps. Because the riser you just tapped into place shoved the skirt board out, ever so slightly. And you think, maybe I can just trim the riser a bit. But you know you only need to trim a little bit. And you wonder whether you’re good enough with the table saw to take just enough. Or should you try a block plane? Or maybe a rasp? And if you take off too much, then the tread will be fine, but the riser will have edge gaps, and you’ll have to throw it out and start over. And then you look down the long stairwell and realize the nightmare will continue, step after step, down into oblivion.

So what do you do? You read some books. And you come up with some tricks. They make special adjustable template tools that allow you to easily gauge the shape of each piece. But a little trick I learned, with two long pieces of paper and some tape, did the same thing:

Using template, but still getting Edge Gaps.

Just slide the left piece of paper against the left skirt board, and the right piece of paper against the right skirt board, then tape them together. Carry that to the lumber, trace your shape, and cut.

So did it work? Well, not really. The books, which are aimed at real finish carpenters, who have the skill, patience, and tools, tell you to use a block plane or rasp to get the right fit. I don’t have any of those, so I just got it as close as I could. Look again at the picture above. The riser just above the paper template. And the one above that. See the right-hand edge? You guessed it. Edge gaps.

I cut all the risers first. It allowed me to assembly-line things, and I could make sure I got them perfectly even with the tops of the rough treads. That way, where the treads meet the risers would be a tight fit.

Risers first.

The more I moved downwards, the less I worried about edge gaps. I decided that they were minor, and I could probably fill with something, maybe some white caulk, which would look fine since I planned to paint the skirt boards white. Caulk fixes everything.

Almost down.

At this points, it’s just a dry fit. I wanted to make sure I had everything fitting before I started connecting things together.

The dry fit - except the top threshold.

If you look closely in the above picture, you’ll notice that the top threshold is not in place. It was a tricky piece, because it had to dovetail around and under the doorjamb, and also dovetail with the first floor’s existing 55 year old oak flooring. If the following picture, you can see the edge of the first floor, and you can make out the tongue that runs along the edge – that would need to fit into a groove in the threshold piece.

edge of old upstairs floor

I took a spare tread and cut it down to the proper width, then ripped a groove in the edge on the table saw. I then cut the left and right ends to the correct pattern to fit with the doorjambs. I also had to cut a little away on one edge of the underside, since the rough wood beneath wasn’t flat. The result is pictured below:

Old meets new.

Attaching the treads and risers was easy, with no hardware showing, because I had access in a small storage area underneath the stairway. For each piece, I used a generous bead of construction adhesive to stick it in place (and prevent squeaks in the future), stacked a few boxes of ceramic floor tiles on it to hold it, went underneath and drilled holes, then screwed it in place. Six screws each. The bottom tread and riser were tricky because of lack of space, but a right-angle attachment for my drill aided in getting the screws in. The top riser had no access from below, so used a few finish nails to attach it. And, the top threshold also had no access from below, so I drilled and countersunk (sank?) five holes through it to affix it, then used oak plugs to hide the holes. In the picture above, you can see one of the plugs slightly to the right of the picture’s center.

I trimmed the skirt boards with a bit of cove molding cut from the top of a piece of the baseboard that I was using throughout the basement. The result is a cap on the skirt board that matches the rest of the baseboard.

The cap detail on the skirt board matches the cap detail on the baseboard

I also ran a 1″x4″ trim piece around the perimeter of the stairwell, seen in the following photo, to hide an overlapping piece of drywall on the right side. The edges of the new drywall in the basement and the old wallboard in the upper part of the stairwell butted perfectly on the left and far sides. But the way framing worked out, with the immovable steel I-beam running down the center of the house, the edge of the new drywall on the right didn’t butt evenly with the edge of the upper wallboard – it stood out about 1/2″. So I capped it with the 1″x4″, (actually 3/4″x3 1/2″) and continued the 1″x4″ around the stairwell as a deign element.

Whatever you do, don't look down.

In finished the stairs with three coats of semi-gloss polyurethane, letting it dry for a day then lightly sanding between each coat. All the trim is white semi-gloss acrylic, and the drywall below the 1″x4″ perimeter piece is the light gray that the rest of the walls in the basement are painted.

Three coats of polyurethane.

The view from above.

The "Monument" view.

In order to pass final inspection, I’ll have to add a handrail. It’s a shame. It looks so nice the way it is.

This was probably the most complicated planning effort required in the basement remodel. I knew that the basement would have a new hot water heater (HWH), new bathroom, new laundry area, and new wet bar. I also wanted to run water up for a future refrigerator upgrade in the kitchen. And I also wanted to run gas up for a future stove upgrade. And to reduce pipe clutter in the ceiling. And I knew that these things were somehow all connected. But where to start?

Well, how about with a picture? In the distance, you can see the old HVAC and HWH at the end of the basement. The joists above (and the water main) run from the front of the house (to the right) to the back of the house (to the left). The wet area, where the new HWH needed to be, is about middle-ground in the photo, and against the far left wall.

Demolition almost complete. HVAC and HWH, c. 2005

I started by taking a piece of 24″x36″ sketch pad paper and drawing a scale image of the joists above, then I marked each vertical pipe run up to he first floor (two for each faucet, 1 for each toilet; a total of 8). I then sketched in the horizontal runs that connected them. I then started to sketch in the new basement plumbing plan. Then I tried to marry the two systems together.

Since the HWH was moving, all the runs to the hot water outlets changed. Since the HWH is one of the first off-ramps from the water main, the main needed to be adjusted and that affected all the runs to the cold water outlets.

It took several drafts, and a lot of denial about the amount of work ahead, to get to a final plan.

Ultimately, I ended cutting each vertical pipe to the upstairs outlets and re-running copper to them, thus replacing almost all the copper supply lines in the house.

Only the vertical up to the first floor is original. All the horizontal is new.

But, I had to do it in a staged fashion, making sure at the end of each day that I had water in the kitchen and at least one bathroom upstairs. So, I ended up capping and re-opening pipes, doing a bit more work than necessary, but at least I never ended up in a hotel taking a shower.

Capping things off at the end of each day.

Staying in service.

While researching the HWH install, I learned there are codes for such things as how far away from the tank the supply shut-off valve needs to be. That’s something you don’t want to have to do over. Also, being an electric HWH, I had to run a 220-volt electric line over to the unit. And, there’s code about that too. The electric supply either needs a shut-off switch at the HWH, or a lock on the breaker so it can be locked OFF during maintenance. I went with the locked breaker – it gives a cleaner look at the unit. What? you think it’s silly, considering aesthetics in a utility room? Well, if you eschew aesthetics in a utility room, where will the eschewing end? I ask you.

And you also need to install what they call a “union” in both the cold-in pipe and the hot-out pipe, just above the tank. These are basically threaded couplings which allow the entire tank to be removed if necessary.

It occurred to me that if I installed the HWH as one of the first steps in the project, I’d have to somehow get the finished flooring under it months (years) later. So I decided to make a tile choice, buy all the tiles (they discontinue them, you know), and lay some tiles in that spot first (which meant I had to buy all the supplies and tools for tiling, and learn how to use them, much sooner than expected).

A tiling note here: There’s a floor drain nearby and the floor slopes toward it. Since I needed the tiles beneath HWH to be level, the amount of tile-sticking-substance I would use beneath them would get thicker toward the drain. I tried mastic first, and it didn’t dry at all. The tiles were still squishy a week later. So I yanked it all up and used thinset mortar, which dried rock hard in about a day.

The next three photos shows the installed HWH. Look closely, and you can see some white 1′ x 1′  ceramic tiles laid in a diagonal pattern beneath it. You can also see the power line running from the studs at the left to the top of the unit. and the copper in/out lines running vertically upward.

The new hot water heater in place.

A few finished tiles in place means no moving the HWH.

220v power, in flexible metal conduit where it's exposed, and cold-in/hot-out pipes. The shut-off valve is on the cold-in side. The unions in each pipe can be seen about a foot above the tank.

Oh, and choosing the HWH? Um, I just went to Home Depot, grabbed one, and threw it in the back of the SUV. It’s worked well so far, except for a year or so later when the control board flipped out. But it was under warranty, and they sent me a new one overnight. Only one cold shower was endured.

Replacing the HWH control board.

I’ve repeated the next two pictures from above, then added a final view. They were all taken from basically the same spot, so they show the progression. In the first photo, the HWH will go where the laundry basket is sitting.

Beginning

Middle

End

Oh, you noticed the lighter-colored concrete tracks on the floor in the first two photos? Right. Well. You are paying attention, aren’t you. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you. You already thought, wait, he’s putting in a new bathroom, laundry room, and wet bar in the basement. And the you thought, that means there are going to be a lot of new water supply lines. And then, in your inimitably logical fasion, you thought, that means… yes… the water will have to go somewhere! Good for you. Drains. What they call groundwork. In a basement, it has to go under the slab. Cutting is involved. And yes, that work was done before all the stuff I just described. But you already knew that, didn’t you?. I just didn’t feel like writing about it in order. More to come. Stay tuned.

One morning in 2002, I woke up and walked into my home office (the front bedroom) to find the room full of what appeared to be ants with wings. After freaking out for a few minutes, I put a few in a plastic container for further research and attacked them with the shop•vac. I then examined my captives, checked the web, and discovered that they were termite swarmers. It turns out the slow drip had created a yard-deep bog in the front planting bed, which was a perfect habitat for termites. They entered through the foundation, made their way into the office, and… well… swarmed.

The old hose bib was soldered in place, so I had to replace it and the pipe leading to it. The shiny copper on the left in the following photo is the new run that I grafted into the main. Up top, you can see the capped-off T joint where the old hose bib off-ramp used to be. The black wire attached to the pipe is the house’s electrical ground coming from the breaker box about 25 feet away. It wasn’t exposed like that originally – I had to remove it as part of the plumbing work, so I ran a temporary ground that I knew I would replace… someday.

You can also tell from the way I ripped into the wall that, even way back in 2002, I was planning on tearing out the basement and doing something different with it.

Water main (c. 2002)

Anyway, the water main travels up the wall and across the ceiling to the “wet area” at the back of the house. The wet area is where all the water sources and drains in the house are grouped: in the basement, the washer, tub, and bathroom; upstairs, the master and hall bathrooms and the kitchen sink. In the following photo, which was taken during the basement renovation, you can see the same water main climbing the wall, then, after rightward and upward jogs, running parallel to the joists towards the back of the house. You can also see a couple of blocks of new wood attached to the joist and to which the main is clamped. Originally, the main was just hanging loose against the old drop ceiling. Once I started on the basement renovation, I cut it out, adjusted the pipes at both ends, then re-installed it.

Water main headed back toward the wet area

Originally, the furnace and the hot water were located at one end of the house. There’s a fireplace upstairs, and the flue extends to the basement. The furnace and hot water heater were both gas, and they vented into the flue. Also, the gas main is in the corner right next to them, so the interior gas distribution didn’t have far to go.

The original furnace and hot water heater (c. 1999)

All of this is the long way of saying that where the water was heated wasn’t near where it was needed. There was about 45 feet of pipe run between them, which meant a long time waiting for hot water, a lot of water wasted, and a lot of pipe clutter overhead.

Pipe clutter.

Let’s see, what else? Well, the water heater was almost 20 years old, so it needed replacing anyway. Also, and this is fodder for another post, the low ceiling and even lower HVAC duct work meant I wanted a new HVAC solution, and if I was going to move that, I might as well move the water heater and free up that floor space for some other purpose.

And, the positioning of the washer/dryer/tub and bathroom in the old basement didn’t fit my new plan. So, the plumbing to-do list looked like this:

• While moving the HVAC, move the hot water heater also. Get it closer to the wet area.
• Reduce pipe clutter across the ceiling in the utility room
• Since gas work has to be done for the HVAC and water heater moves, run a line up under the kitchen in case, if I ever renovate the kitchen, I want a gas oven/stove
• Chop out all the current bathroom and utility room drainwork under the slab and re-run for a relocated bathroom, relocated washer/tub, and wet bar.
• Run copper and drains for the new utility room, bathroom, and wet bar. While I’m at it:
  • Re-do the runs for the 2 hose bibs in the back of the house.
  • Run a line up into the kitchen behind the refrigerator in case, if I ever renovate the kitchen, I get a refrigerator that dispenses ice and water

Oh, and do all of this in such a way that, at the end of each day, you still have hot water (any water) in the kitchen and at least one bathroom upstairs.

Without any actual plumbing skills.

Sounds like fun.

A few years back, when I was framing the basement, I had a large load of 2×4s delivered from Smoot Lumber in Springfield. Some of them were warped beyond usability, and I set them aside in my junk pile. My estimation of lumber quantity was low, and I had to make several trips to Lowe’s and/or Home Depot to augment. Spend any time buying lumber at Lowe’s and/or Home Depot and you’ll find a lot of twisted wood. I guess it’s cut and packed while still a bit wet, and once they cut the straps at the store, the pieces dry out and warp.

I was obsessed with finding quality lumber. I’d dig through the stack of 2×4s, piling the bad pieces in the aisle, looking for the elusive straight pieces, which always seemed to be at the bottom. Once I’d found enough, I’d have to re-stack the bad stuff to clear the aisle. I’d load the truck, take it home, and unload it into the basement. The next day, I’d find that a bunch of the pieces had dried and warped over night. It was only straight in the store because it was at the bottom of the stack and hadn’t had a chance to dry out.

Needless to say, my junk pile grew.

You might think all of that experience would have been in the back of my mind while considering 2×12s for the stair stringers. And, you might also think I’d take seriously the warnings I read about dimensional lumber for stringers. Take, for example, the following picture, from page 34 of Building Stairs, from Taunton’s For Pros By Pros series, showing where shrinkage can occur. In addition to shrinkage, the “teeth” of the stringers can warp to the left or right.

What can go wrong?

Did I take all the warnings seriously? Well, if you think so, then you haven’t been reading closely. Remember?

I’ll cut to the chase. Yeah, both of those things happened. On the bright side, I’m not moving quickly, (I cut the initial stringers in July of 2006, and replaced them, as detailed below, in April of 2008), so the problems became apparent before I finished the stairs. Also, the emotional attachment I had to the original stringers had mostly evaporated by the time I switched on the reciprocating saw to cut them out.

What, you may be asking, was the solution? Well, Building Stairs didn’t have that nice little picture just to taunt me. They offered a more stable alternative involving plywood and a lot of glue. The problem is, stringers are usually pretty long, and pretty thick, and plywood comes in 4×8 sheets that are only 3/4″ thick. So, I’d have to laminate several pieces together to create the board from which I would cut the stringer. In the photo below, the longer pieces are 8′ long, and the shorter are 4′, giving a 12′ length. And two layers gives it a 1.5″ thickness (which, if you’re not familiar with dimentional lumber, is actually how thick the 2″ edge of a 2-by is). Overlapping the joints gives strength.

Jigsaw puzzle

A gallon of Elmer’s carpenter’s glue, two dozen clamps, and 24 hours of dry time later, and I had one stringer. Repeat. Repeat again.

A few clamps

Once the laminated boards were ready, I trimmed the edges, then marked and cut the stringers. And it is will no small amount of embarrassment that I tell you that, after having measured and cut the original three stringers, I cut all three of the new stringers wrong. It was only off by a half an inch, but, believe it or not, your feet can tell the difference. And so can my pride.

What did I do? Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Crisp and clean (and correctly cut) stringers

Version 2 of the rough stairs have risers and treads made of 3/4″ plywood. Unlike stairs v1.0, This is a permanent underlayment to which the finish risers and treads will be attached, adding strength and rigidity to the structure. I also left a rather significant gap on each side for installation of the skirtboard.

Was all that work really worth it?

Next on “stairs” – finish anxiety.

First, a look at the original stairs in their natural habitat.

A view from February, 2002

My plan was to keep the original strings and refinish them with new treads and risers.

The stringers exposed

However, during demolition in 2006, it became clear that the original stringers weren’t desirable. A previous owner had notched the stringers to create the framing for an under-stair storage space, thus severely compromising their structural integrity. They had shored up the downhill side of the stringer with 2×4s but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t pass framing inspection if and when I got to that point.

It doesn't take a structural engineer to see...

So, I bought a couple of 16′ pieces of 2×12 and laid out my own stringers. I ran into two issues. First, the stairs are steep and, therefore, the ratio of rise to run wasn’t within the limits of county code. Second, with the low ceiling in the basement, the headroom above the bottom step was too low for code. If I had maintained the original stringers, the deviances would have been grandfathered in. However, by replacing them, I had to either meet code, or get a waiver. A couple of visits to the permit office, a few forms filled out, and one visit by the inspector later, and I had my letter of variance.

It took a little head scratching to figure out the layout

A little circular saw magic, and then the dry-fit

The stringers are strengthened by 2×4s on nailed to either side, and attached at the top with galvanized corner brackets.

Whew. The fit.

Some scrap MDF makes great temporary treads

Next, on “stairs” – the twisted nature of dimensional lumber.

One.... two....

There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

Whew

A little work with a file and the soap dispenser base goes right in.

Yeah, it was worth it

It’s much easier to install the faucet before setting the sink in place. The sink also comes with clips that are supposed to grip the underside of the counter top and hold it in place, but the plywood underlayment and backer board together were too thick for the clips. Also, the sink’s right side was so close to the edge of the counter top that there wasn’t room for the clips. Guess I should have read the sink’s installation guide in advance. So I skipped the clips, betting on the sink’s weight and a bead of caulk to hold it in place.

Caulk. Ugh. For some reason, I had a tube of pure silicone sealant laying around, so I ran a bead of it around the rim of the sink and set it in place. What a #*$&% mess. I had to pull the sink out and spend about 30 minutes with turpentine cleaning off the counter tiles and the underside of the sink. Then I got smart and found a tube of kitchen & bath adhesive caulk. It cleans up with soap and water.

After the sink was in place, I ran a thin bead of caulk where the sink met the counter top to seal it off.

Just Say No to silicone

The waste pipe in the wall was a little low, so I had to use an extension to get from the sink drain down to the j-trap. The hot and cold water supply pipes come attached to the faucet, so all I had to do was use a bit of Teflon tape and attach them to the supply valves.

The faucet has a pull-out wand, so there’s an extension hose that hangs down underneath with a doughnut-shaped weight on it to pull it back in when you return the want to the faucet base. One end of the hose connects to the wand, and the other connects to a water supply hose that extends down from the faucet. It’s a push-on connection, which seemed a little… weak to me.

Which, of course, it was. A few seconds after I turned on the water, the pressure blew the hoses apart, and I had a cabinet full of water. As I sopped up the mess, and seethed, I wondered how I was going to get this defective faucet out and return it. It’s almost impossible to access in the back corner of the cabinet. So, I pushed the connection together and turned on the water again. And guess what happened? It held!

A little water never hurt anything

Ok, now back to reality. Seriously, did you think it would hold? If so, your denial mechanism is stronger than mine, because, even as I turned on the water again, I knew it would blow.

This time, as I cleaned up the mess, I suppressed my anger and tried to think rationally. I had to have missed something. But, how could I figure it out? If only there were some sort of… document. Something that describes the pertinent details. I scoured the packaging materials and came across an obscure document called the Installation Guide. Hm. An interesting read. And, it included a reference to a little plastic clip that holds the tubes together. After rooting around through the box, I found that little piece of plastic I had dismissed earlier.

It's alive

The big picture

Hm, this is easy. I should be done in no time.

I wanted tight grout joints. 1/16″ spacers do the job.

Hanging the edge tiles

I didn’t want to edge tiles pulling the top tiles out of whack, so I let the top tiles dry for a day before I hung the edges.

Dry time

Caulk is all you need to affix the backsplash to the wall.

A little dab'll do ya

Despite the best intentions of the level brothers, Bullet and TwoFoot, I somehow ended up with some uneven joints.

Damnit

So, I yanked out a few tiles, used a scraper to remove the dried mastic, and re-set them.

Why do anything just once?

Ah, grouting. What have we learned about grouting? That time of day is a factor to consider.

Don't grout angry. Don't grout angry.

In my never-ending effort to use the correct material for the job, I make the trek to Lowe’s. Stroll down their aisles. Looking for Floor Mortar. Deck Mud. Nothing. I ask for help. The guy’s very responsive. He has a cordless phone through which he can broadcast his voice on the store’s intercom, which he does, asking for the MOD to call him. [Note to retailers everywhere: if you want to make a customer feel important, make sure everyone in the entire store knows he needs help.] One short phone call later, and we have our answer. It’s in the flooring aisle. Of course! Where else would Floor Mortar be?

I stroll confidently to the flooring aisle, but all I find is thinset mortar, tile mastic, and grout. I should have known. I’ve spent a good part of the last four years in the flooring aisle. Surely, there’s been some mistake. I wander a bit more, but the wind’s gone from my sails. Dejected, I buy a concrete float (I haven’t yet lost all hope), and head home.

Then, at midnight, the time when all great ideas occur, it hits me. Maybe a specialty plumbing supply store will sell this mysterious, elusive substance. I run to the computer and fire up the Google. But, after a little reading, I find that Deck Mud isn’t a product. It’s a recipe. You make it yourself, with basic materials found at any Home Depot or Lowe’s: 5 parts sand to 1 part portland cement. Oh.

Lucky for me, nobody at Home Depot or Lowe’s knows anything about building stuff. That could have been embarrassing.

Pop Quiz: what are you lookin' at?

Pop Quiz: what are you lookin' at?

That said, it does have its payoff.