Stairs out with the old… in with the new!

Mary and I have been talking about replacing the banister on our stairs for a long time now.

We spent a lot of time looking for ideas and this year we started getting quotes.

As the contractors came through all were willing to do the work. But all seemed to be too much variances in the quotes and what work was needed. We couldn’t tell if one was over priced or the other was not giving honest quotes. Finally Mary asked on Facebook if anyone knew a handyman who could help us. Her friend contacted us back recommending her son Danny Osmon. We looked at some pictures of cabinets and furniture he had built. We could not believe we could afford his work.

After he came and looked at our stairs he said he could easily replace our old banister, but if we ever wanted to replace the stairs later, we would have to replace the new banister… none of the other contractors had mentioned that. They just said they would give us a quote for new stairs when we decided to proceed.

We asked for a quote for replacing everything. When we received it we could not believe how reasonable it was.

As he began to work I was able to watch Danny and his brother Mike work on taking a pile of Oak boards and change them from a pile of wood into an unbelievably sturdy and beautiful set of stairs.

   

First they replaced the basement stairs. On removal of the old stairs he found a problem with the wall under the stairs. The original wall was not fastened to the floor in the basement. This was causing the old stairs to be unsupported from underneath and the sides were spreading causing the steps to crack and come loose.

  

This meant the entire wall under the stairs had to be removed and rebuilt before the new stairs could be installed. After that wall was rebuilt

 

During this process we had one day that we had to go up a ladder to go to bed. Mary said she felt like Little House on the Prairie.

 

After the stairs were in, we could not stop saying to each other how beautiful our new stairs were. Over and over when we walked by them we would exclaim, “WE GOT NEW STAIRS.”

 

   

 

 

Then, the painter came. It took almost as many days to stain and varnish the stairs as it took to build them.

 

As each stroke of the stain rag or varnishing brush went by they became more and more beautiful.

So now we have these beautiful stairs!