So this is a shot of the existing staircase from the front room. The diagonal bracing you see above the door opening is a job-built truss. Today we would use a doubled 2x12 or a piece of engineered lumber, a beam built up out of veneer and glue. Look at the bottom of the diagonals, how they are notched into the bottom 2x4, or plate. It is crude and precise at the same time. The notches were made with one saw cut and show hatchet marks where the waste was removed. Today in the very rare event that a carpenter needed to build a truss on-site, all the connections would be made with nails. There is an aversion to any kind of joinery among framers, since nails come out of gun and joinery takes time. And the solid header would be stronger and faster to make, over a short span like this. But it is lovely, I think. We are still planning to replace the stairs. Stairs are all I do at work anymore and when I look at these I get a little...
We bought a house! And we are working on remodeling it! Since our friends and family live across the globe -- and since social distancing is likely to be the norm for a while yet -- we thought a blog might be a great tool to keep you updated on our progress, and to document the process for ourselves.