Staircases are always challenging. In the past, unhappy with how the kit stairs looked or turned out, I purchased Hobby Lobby stair kits that were already assembled except for the railing, which is always murderous to build. With the Newbury, I decided to use the stairs provided with the kit because I'll be adding an extra wall so that I don't have to do the railing. I am also going to make that wall removable and the stairs removable because that is where I am going to hide my electrical nightmare, but more to come on that later. First, let's build the stairs.
These older kits by Green Leaf and Real Good Toys made circa 1990s were punch out pieces on pretty poor, splintery, rough plywood. They require a lot of tender loving work to get good results, such as sanding and multiple coats of paint. I'll show you what I mean.
The pieces will punch out easily, but be careful of splinters.
With all the pieces punched out, I did a dry fit by laying the pieces out on 1/2" 12x12 piece of styrofoam. I used toothpicks to hold the stair casings in place. Before I began the dry fit, I sanded each piece front, back and raw edges to smooth out the rough wood.
Of course I referred the kit instructions to determine which piece was the stair tread and which was the riser: narrow piece was the tread.
I had to play around to make sure that I had the pieces positioned correctly. Sometimes stairs can become an optical illusion--which is the up way as opposed to the down way?
Because I couldn't line the treads up evenly, I added a flat rule as support.
Dry fitting pieces really helps to figure out how pieces are going to fit together before applying glue for the final assembly.
I decided to stain the stair tread using a water based stain gel. I applied a thick coat then wiped off the excess with a paper towel. After I stained the treads, I realized that real stair treads had rounded front edge, so I created the rounded edge but sanding in on direction holding the piece at an angle and drawing it across a coarse 120 grit sanding block. I could have left the edges bare to create worn look; however, I don't think wear and tear on the stairs would be so even, so I added another coat of stain gel.
The risers were pre-sanded smooth then I applied 3 coats of this creamy acrylic paint, sanding lightly in between coats.
The Hobby Lobby or Michael's water based stain and paints lend great results. I top coated all the pieces with a couple of coats of clear acrylic water based varnish.
Somewhere during the dry assembly process, I realized that the kit does not proved a back piece for the stairs, so I cut a piece to the length of what the instructions indicate the stairs will be from a piece of 1/6" basswood. This piece does not need to be painted since it won't show.
Next: Glue everything together.
From the beginning to the end, it took me two days to complete the project. Day one I spend figuring out the dry fitting then the sanding and painting were the most tedious part. I let the painted and stained pieces dry overnight and assembled the stairs the next day.
With the stairs completed, the house assembly will go quickly; however, I have a huge obstacle: wallpaper. I bought a digital download wallpaper that I absolutely love, but I cannot get it to print the right color, so I'm having to figure out another paper. I want to paper the ground floor walls before I assemble the house--you will see why, hopefully in the next post.
Until then--so glad you popped in. Here, we are staying inside for the next few days simply because it is COLD, a -1 this morning. Stay warm, friends. Winter is here.
Have a wonderful week.
Ann
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