Measure twice, cut three or four times

(Almost) naked staircase

When we left off yesterday, I had just finished removing all the carpeting, step by step (right).

As much as I wish I could dispense with the carpet entirely, it's not going to happen. The treads are extremely unlovely 2x12 pine with rough bullnoses cut into both edges and riddled with staples holding down the carpet underlayment. Not only is staining them out of the question (and I don't want painted steps), but the treads are captured in rather loose mortise slots in the stringers that can only be disguised by carpet. It is possible to get thin hardwood treads to cover pine treads – and they look pretty nice – but I'd be looking at at least $600-$700 to do that, which isn't in the budget.

So... the carpet pieces will be reused to cover the treads once I've gotten the risers installed.

About those risers. Here's my plan for inserting them:

Retrofitting the staircase with risers, cross-section (rough sketch, not to scale)

I need to slice off the rear bullnose on each stair (see upper stair in sketch), then fit a board in each opening, nailed or screwed through the riser into the back end of each tread and through the tread above into the top of the riser. Then I'll recarpet each tread from the back edge at the bottom of the riser to the front edge and down around the bullnose (which isn't as long as this unscaled sketch implies). Actually, I'm going to experiment to see if I can attach the riser directly to the rear bullnose and skip the step of slicing them off – the carpet would cover the small dip at the back of the tread – but I suspect it will leave the front bullnose extending too far.

That is, I'll experiment once I get a board cut to the correct length. I measured the the distance between the stringers, which looked to be 35-1/4", maybe a tad less. I marked the length on a 1x8 board and marked the cutting line with my speedsquare. A quick pass with my handy-dandy Craftsman Nextec lithium-battery-powered 3-1/4" power saw and I took the board in to try it in an opening. It started into place then jammed. Too long, apparently. I took it back out on the deck and shaved a bit off the end. Still wouldn't go into place. Rinse and repeat... okay, this is getting frustrating. I remeasured between the stringers, and remeasured the board. It should fit, dammit.

Unless... something isn't square? I know the board ends are square. Which leaves the opening between the stringers and steps. I got my speedsquare and set it flush against the bottom of the tread, with the top corner against the stringer. And there's the bottom of the square, almost 1/4" away from the stringer.

               

Just a bit out of square

Checking the other side confirmed it: the opening is a parallellogram (right) instead of a rectangle. I haven't checked every step yet, but so far it looks like the whole staircase is slightly racked to one side (but not as much as the parallelogram pictured, thankfully). If so, then I'm going to have to cut each board a couple of degrees out of square on each end to match the openings; the discrepancy is way too much to solve by simply cutting the boards short.

I think I need a miter saw...