Good Morning World,

Not a lot of much to brag over here existentially.  I resurfaced a landing and a few stairs in white oak.  Had never done much fundamental carpentry of this nature before but the concepts were not far.  I did use rough lumber (on purpose, to justify the getting of a thickness planer, which for all their inelegance show why the blessed and beautiful hand plane could not compete on the mass market).  Able assistance in preventing many errors was provided by my brother in law.

Some of the wood (the thick 5/4 9 inch wide treads) I obtained from a local Massachusetts tree-cutter who dries and ages wood himself.  It was of good quality and nicely priced.  The other wood I got, rough also, from Highland Hardwoods in Brentwood, New Hampshire.  Great shorts, including quarter-sawn oak.

We measured and milled the lumber to size, landing at 15/16 in thickness.  One could get under this from the basement side, so we screwed it in from the bottom up.  Two of the boards we did not getting the jointing just right, we were using the table saw to try to get a straight edge and that does not always go just so.  The variance is never more than an eighth, usually less than a 16th, but I can’t say we planned it for expansion or anything clever like that.  This was done in August and if anything shrinkage will occur during the winter.

The main point was the replace the existing treads which had weird trip-hazard moldings at the lip over laminate.  The landing was laminate too, matching the kitchen above, but leaving that would have been no fun.  Also the existing stairs were not of a consistent rise, so what seemed like an excessive amount of math and measuring went on to remedy that.

I made all the little moldings using the a router with a round over bit and the then the table saw.  That was surprisingly easy.

The pictures have enough detail if they are clicked on.

There was very nice figure in some of the boards.  I like thick one piece treads.  We used some sort of honey stain trying to match the kitchen – came close there but I prefer the natural.  Polyurethane on top, low gloss.

No trumpets, no special remarks, but this was fun to do, a lot learnt including

• That existing structures often have no level or plumb references
• That past a certain point I am just not a fine trim painter.  That part came out not so great and for me it would take many lifetimes to remedy.

Anyway, I am thankful to my mother for letting her stairwell be the crash test dummy for this exercise.