Step Right Up

Much as we all enjoyed climbing scaffolding to get to the loft, once the floor was installed downstairs, it was time to put in a stairway. Because of the look we wanted, it had to be fabricated on site.

We chose to make the stringers for the stairway out of the laminated boards the framers used for the house structure. They are stronger than wood of the same thickness (at least the wood we were considering). It took some sanding to get them smooth enough to have a relatively uniform surface when painted.

The painted braces drying on the beam to the lower deck

Dave moved a single temporary tread up the stairway to kneel on as he added braces.

Dave pretending to find funny the inevitable "Stairway to Heaven" reference.

Braces installed

You can see the oak floor hasn't been laid in the loft yet. Something about the floor installers not wanting to climb up and down a ladder during installation. Some people . . . .

Since there was still so much work to be done upstairs, we installed temporary treads for the duration of major construction; that way the permanent treads wouldn't be damaged.

Best not to look down. The permanent steps will be deeper, so the view won't be quite as scary.

Next: the galvanized railing.

Uplight, Out of Sight

The big room presents some challenges to heating and cooling the house evenly throughout the year, as well as challenges to lighting the space.

O. G. Sam chose two fans for the room, sleek but also reminiscent of a fan from, say, a hard-boiled detective's office.

The fans do double duty as light fixtures.

In order to light the room without creating a strobe effect with the fans, Sam designed an uplight: a galvanized tray with LED tube lighting inside.

Dave figured out how to fabricate and hang the trays. This involved cutting, bending, burnishing, and cleaning the steel, which now has the finish of a favorite kitchen knife.

Electrician Sam made the uplights work.

Oh, yeah: they dim. Now—after Dave slithered through a hole he cut in the extremely narrow attic in order to run a low-voltage line to each of the trays. LED dimming is still an inexact science.

The rat-run from outside

And inside

Two wires now coil around the cables suspending the lights.

Fans and lights operational. Note the pink shift the lights caused in the camera.

Now that we have some light in the place, it's time to build stairs and railings.