my dad is about to have knee replacement
surgery and he finds these front porch
steps to be just a little bit too
difficult to get up and down as it is if
he rises just a little bit too tall and
the tread is not near deep enough so
while I'm staying with him for a few
weeks I'm gonna go ahead and take the
opportunity to rebuild these steps so
that he can get up and down just a
little bit easier
first things first was to demo the old
staircase and with it being so small
this took no time at all
very month
next I grabbed some quarter-inch plywood
and first made a template of the new
proposed rise and run which is a six
inch rise and 11 inch run the old rise
was seven and a quarter and the old run
was only nine inches deep my dad
couldn't even get a full foot on the
treads after tracing out the template on
my 2 by 12 I grabbed my circular install
and started cutting it out well if a
little bit of jamming in between cuts
it's far quicker if you make all of the
cuts in one direction on the stringers
first and then come back and make the
rest of the cuts go in the opposite
direction I would make the majority of
the cut using my circular saw but then
come back with my sawzall in order to
finish the cut next I move back over the
front porch and started preparing it so
that I could attach the stringers the
brackets made for attaching stringers I
have a really wide base on them and so
in order to create a nice flat surface
to attach that base to I cut and
attached a few two by sixes but then I
grab my hammer and nails and it's
hatched the stringers using the
dedicated stringer hangers and if you're
interested about anything that I'm using
I have lucky links in the description
below with the stringers up now it was
time to start making the treads and
risers this is just a bunch of
repetitive cuts so what I did was I set
up my multi stand so I can place a stop
block since all of these are gonna be
cut the exact same length however before
assembling everything I did give
everything two coats of paint
okay with everything dried I moved on to
attaching the pose now since I'm
changing the rise and run I'm having to
add an additional step which means the
front of the staircase is no longer on
concrete but is on asphalt which is too
soft to anchor into so instead of
anchoring the stairs at the first step
I'm anchoring them at the second step
and going into this concrete once the
anchors were tightened down I had Cody
hold a level on the post for me
so that I could go down the bottom and
attach the bracket to the post but
before attaching the post to the
stringers I decided to use some of the
scrap tee by sixes to create some
additional support then I text my body
into this little bitty space and drilled
a through hole through the stringer and
and through the post its where then I
could use two carriage bolts per post to
secure it to the stringer starting to
look like steps alright next I started
adding on all of the risers whatever
you're putting in your treads go ahead
and just use a scrap piece of board cut
up the size of your overhang so that you
can very quickly put all of these in
their place you see a lot of treads that
have a nose on the front or an overhang
and I chose to make mine flush just
because I don't want any tripping
hazards for my dad
so between nut and these being more
shallow as well as deeper I think all of
these things will make a big difference
overall already next I moved on to
cutting the angle on the post for the
handrail but these being four by fours I
ended up having to make two passes one
on each side with my circular saw to go
all the way through it can be a tricky
cut but that's what makes it rewarding
whenever you nail it
I'm making good goods and you'll see on
these handrails that left the T by 4 is
really long and this is because it's far
easier to cut them to match whenever
they're both secured in place rather
than cutting them beforehand and then as
securing them to take away some of that
sharpness on the edge I grab my palm
sander and round it over at all the
edges moving along to the styles now
I'll be matching the same styles that my
folks already have on their porch but to
make this job go a little bit easier I
cut the bottom rail but then clamped it
onto the top rail so that I could then
mark the location of where I wanted all
of the styles on both of the rails the
top and the bottom at the same time and
this allowed me to then unclamp the
bottom rail go and secure all of the
styles to it then position the bottom
rail into place and just make sure all
of the styles were plumbed before
attaching them and I was gonna call it a
wrap after that but but that gap in the
top riser from whenever they built the
original porch was just really bothering
me so I decided to come back and add
some caulking now I'm going with the
product made by sashko called big
stretch because it's meant to fill in
gaps up to two inches and it can also
stretch up to five times the original
joint size without cracking it's rated
for interior and exterior so for
projects like this that will definitely
have movement over time I think it's
perfect
and while I was at it I went ahead and
went over the entire staircase filling
in all of the screw holes as well as the
slight gaps here and there around the
Stiles and the treads where I cut in
around those posts this is a 100%
acrylic latex caulk so it was ready for
paint after about four hours
okay so that is it you know thinking
back on it this is my second set of
stairs that I've built and I probably
should have started with a smaller set
like this instead of the humongous set
that I did in my own backyard if you
want to link to that video I will put it
in the description if you're looking at
doing a bigger staircase that's it for
this one hope that you enjoyed it I'll
see you on whatever it is I'm working on
next
I have to cancel