Every wonder what is under your stairs???

Well, do you? I did, until I pulled up my first stair tread and discovered this:

That's right, hundred year old trash and chicken bones. And as we got higher up, I also discovered also super mold oldy bead board on the interior of the stairs on the left hand side.

So not exciting and kinda creepy in a horror movie kinda way!!!! I will say that I was happy not to find colonies of spiders or other critters, so I suppose that was a plus. As you can tell, my grandpa and I went to town on the stair treads. The process was not overly complicated but did require a lot of tools and measuring.

Items used:

• pry bar
• hammer
• nail set
• nails (extra long!)
• wood blocks
• nail gun with air compressor
• liquid nails
• caulking gun
• paper towels
• dust mask
• saw 
• workstation
• tape measure 
• circular hand saw
• extension cord
• wood plane
• lunch (it will take you all day)

I'm going to try my best to explain the process but forgive me in advance, as I am not a carpenter. So don't hate if I misuse any terms. I worked with my grandpa in the summers as a kids, so I guess I'm an official "gopher!" (aka go get me hammer, etc.)

The first thing we did was remove the decorative trim at the base of the stair tread. Then we took the pry bar and hammer and removed the tread. Some treads were easier than others and some even cracked in half in the process. It seemed to really come down to how many nails were in the tread. The ones with excessive nails took excessive arm power!

Next, we took a measurement and cut the new tread to size. Well I didn't do the cutting, but I supervised! Now here comes the exciting and complicated step. Before installing the new tread, we had to remove the excess nails that remained from the previous tread. Now normally you'd just take the hammer and pry them out but of course it wasn't that easy! The heads of the nails were buried, as they were nailed from the backside of the staircase. Therefore, we had to use the circular hand saw to cut the nails. This was the scariest part, and even after 14 stairs I couldn't man up. Cutting nails includes lots of sparks and smoke. We even ended up setting of the smoke detectors several times! So every time we got to the cutting step I stepped back and hit my eyes. Yes, I am a chicken, so what!?! All I could think about was my hair or clothes catching on fire from those smelly sparky fumes!

After removing the nails, we had to install small nailing blocks on the interior right hand side of the stairs. Once again, the stairs were put together from the outside and did not require an additional nailing support.  If you look at the picture below you can see that the left has a nailing block while the right does not.

 

So we had to install small wood blocks on the right hand side in order to have a place to nail through the top of the stair tread. See installed block below.

 

After the block was installed, we dry fitted the tread before using glue and nails to make sure it was the correct measurement. This step is vital especially in an older home where things are NEVER square and plumb. In some cases we had to use the wood plane to shave off a little extra on the front or back of the new tread in order for it fit tightly. Next, using liquid nails, we covered all the surfaces to help prevent movement and squeaking.

Then all that's left is to put down the new tread. Lay down the new tread and nail on both the right and left sides. To avoid damaging the new and most beautiful tread, we used a nail set to hammer the nails just below the surface of the tread. Below is a picture of the nail set, to the right of the hammer.

 

 ANNNNNND after you repeat this process 14 times, you end up with this.... *drum roll please*

Oh yeah, cue that beautiful bean footage! Uhh I mean stair footage! Aren't they a beaut!! Of course this is the most flattering view because it does not feature the ratty-in-desperate-need-of-paint risers that you can see from the bottom of the stairs. Ah well, for now I just stand at the top and stare at the stairs, ha! I am so full of stair jokes!

(Note: the one tread near the bottom is still unstained, as it was our tester to see if we could replace the treads. It will receive a full stain and poly soon.)

We started about 10 am and finished up at 4:57 pm on the dot. As soon as we got to that top step, my grandpa said "now this is one we've been looking for ALL day!" So true!! Especially after the last few treads causing so much trouble with their plethora of unneeded nails, and a couple of cracked risers.

Also, for comparison purposes lets see the pile of nasty, dirty, cracked, busted, moldy old treads...

And the new more beautiful and shiny treads....

 

What a world of difference! 

Now on to the next step (ha!) scraping, sanding, filling in holes and painting. I've given the stairs a break for the last week and half after all the work I've been putting in. But soon enough, I'll hop on the detail work.

Hope you had fun treading through this post! Have a great weekend!