Well, this is awkward…

One of the most exciting projects in our timber frame/straw bale home of 2013 was building the wooden spiral staircase. It was a real head scratcher, and physically challenging to build as well. But the results were intensely exciting. The staircase is now an awesome focal point in the house.

We built the stairs in the days leading up to our move to Kentucky, and so we never had much of a chance to actually use them. We knew, too, that over time the risers and treads would shift a bit as the wood dried, and the whole thing would likely need adjustments later.

Well, since coming back to work on the house again, we’ve had an opportunity to see how things have changed and correct as necessary. As you can see above, it was at times a bit of a contortionist affair.

Wooden Spiral Staircase: Redux

The main issue is that… well, wood moves, and in our spiral staircase design we used unseasoned stair risers. Long story short, things have settled over the year we’ve been away. Realistically, we should have expected that the risers would sag a fair bit, as these stairs could never truly be cantilevered — the cantilever is simply too long. But, I think it was still the right decision to wait and see, and make changes later.

Now, these photos below make it look like whatever we did wasn’t that big of a deal… which I guess is a good thing, but it took a full two days to make all the adjustments necessary. It’s one of those things that you aren’t handed instructions for and need to make up as you go along, at times stumbling along the way. It’s also very difficult to make saw cuts in the air and feel like absolutely everything is in the way of what you want to do.

The newly supported spiral staircase

Shoring Up The Stairs

Thankfully, we left the 3×5 risers long, which came in handy as attachment points to tie into the framing elsewhere. You can see here that the tie beam across the house served as one of those very useful points to tie into. We were able to attach the topmost five steps into framing overhead, and used a stash of stocky oak 2x4s as the support pieces. Screws were the most realistic attachment option. No joinery here… that would have truly been a nightmare. We opted for GRK RSS screws, my favorite beefy fastener that also happens to look half-decent.

The biggest trick of all was tying into the framing in such a way that it looked good, and could also serve a secondary function. For example, the supports below were installed in the same plane so shelving could get installed later.

Supports installed in the same plane for shelving later

A look from the opposite side

The bottom-most step supports went down to the floor, and though I thought these would be easier to build… they were as difficult or more difficult to build than the ones above. Aesthetically, they look a bit odd, or at least could have been much worse… but we came up with the idea to install a shelf from the get go. The shelf actually helps tie everything together and stiffen the whole assembly, and it also distracts the eye from the upright supports. It looks pretty decent, I think.

The bottom-most stairs get tied into the floor below

I was worried that we’d lose the whole “floating stairs” look with all of this additional framing, but I’m happy with the results. You can hardly tell that anything has changed, and the new framing will provide a space to hang shelving as well. I’m glad that’s behind us now, and we can enjoy our newly solidified staircase. They are really rock solid now!

The newly updated spiral staircase, now completely solid!