I got some proper lights installed on the outside of the garage since my last update. Those temporary lights were starting to look normal to me, so I knew I better get the right ones put up there soon.
That's better than those bare bulbs that were hanging there.
And............drum-roll please........I finally built some stairs going down to the lower bay. No more ladder climbing, yea!
I'd never built stairs before, so I had to think about it for a while to get the design figured out. There are
stair calculators available on the web that help you laying out the stringers, but the overall design was what I had to get straight in my head before I could get started. Also, building stairs up against concrete is a little different than against a wooden structure so I had to get that figured out as well.
I needed to get the concrete and cinder block walls primed and sealed in that corner before I could build against them, so that was the first step. Since there were no headroom or run length limitations, I only had to supply the stair calculator with the total rise and tread thickness dimensions to get the stringer layout. It was raining the day I cut the stringers so I was working inside, using the truck bed as a workbench. That's my laptop sitting on the 2x12 I'm consulting.
I got three stringers layed out and cut. I didn't plan on having a riser board, but after mounting the stringers I decided they needed some blocking between them to reduce their ability to twist, especially the outside stringer that will have two 4x4's attached to it to support the hand-rail. And, I needed the handrail on the cinder-block wall side to stand away from the wall to allow clearance for sheet-rock (or whatever) in the future. The 4x4's against the concrete and cinder blocks are anchored to the walls with Tapcon bolts and construction adhesive. These stairs are going to be sturdy!
I cut some blocking out of 2x12 and mounted them between the stringers, every other step. Had to use my pipe clamps to hold things together while I screwed them.
This is how they turned out. There are 12 rises of 7". The treads are all 10-1/2" including the 1/2" of nosing.
The edges of all the step and handrail boards have been eased to a soft curve with a router and sander.
The width of the stair opening from the upper bay had been set months ago, so I used the whole width available. If I had made the stairs narrower, there would have been a large gap between the stair handrail and the steel pipe rail on top of the concrete wall. Not good for small children.
So, what kind of clear finish do I put on the white wood? Polyurethane? The 4x4's are too wet to put anything on right now.
And, what do I use that area under the stairs for?
:):)
