Nailed the Landing!

The snow continued into the first week of the new year. We almost didn’t make it out of our house one day.

After a lengthy breakfast while pondering what to do, Sam dug us out, and out we went!

We started building the landing – a necessary step before working on the stairs. The first set of stairs leads to the landing in front of the office. A second set of stairs connects the landing to the attic.

First, we prepared a steel column to support the stairs/landing. Sam cut the steel tubing and welded end caps to it. Then we painted it black. We aimed our new heaters at it in order for the paint to cure. Guess where I was standing all day.

After some careful measuring, we drilled a hole in the floor for an anchor bolt.

Then, we set the column over the anchor bolt and secured it to the floor. (Prior to welding the end caps, we cut a little mouse hole in the back to access the bolt. Hopefully this doesn’t lead to a mouse habitat.)

A special glulam (“glue-lam”) beam was required to frame the landing, spanning the space from the column to the wall. Glulam is essentially a stack of 2×4’s glued together- a very heavy stack of 2×4’s. It was too heavy for the two of us to lift. We eventually got it on the saw and cut it to the correct length.

With a little creativity, the two of us set it in place on top of the steel column.

Next, we installed the floor joists for the landing.

Sam nailed one end of the joists…

while I screwed the opposite ends in. Those ends are supported with special brackets that screw into the glulam.

Now that the landing is in place, we can measure for the stairs!