A Day at the Stairs

We had a problem with this kitchen remodel. With the refrigerator moved to the other wall, the cabinet on the far side needed to come down to get some walkable space there. Then we wanted to build a new cabinet between the new fridge location and the window. This wasn't going to leave much space for the desk, and this really is where Kelley and I both work when we have to work from home. So if I build a desk next to the cabinet, that could be awesome but the floor is too narrow right there.

I discovered that the floor at the top of the stairs was 22" wide, while the landing at the bottom of the stairs was 28" wide. Why? I couldn't figure out why there was so much floor space down there when I had been struggling to hang drywall around those stupid stairs for a week! It was already terrible, so I decided to change it and that made a huge difference.

This went hand in hand with widening the doorway at the bottom of the stairs. We removed the actual door years ago, but the framing was all still there. When the new fridge was moved in, that door ended up being the bottleneck width. So I was able to pull out the jamb and get about 2.5" of extra width.

Old stairs removed, but you can see where they were

New door molding

Bottom half of the door widened

From the mud room, doorway to the crawl space

Old stairs are out

I wanted to reuse as much of the old stairway as I could for the sheer inconvenience of having to purchase and cut any new treads, risers, or frames. It was only about 15* on the day I decided to do this, and with a massive hole opened up in the floor exposing the unheated crawl space, my wife didn't want any distractions.

Reinstalled the frames, risers, and treads

Now in a more appropriate location

Still hanging out in a gaping hole

It's a hole in the floor!

I moved the stairs forward, creating a gap at the back which meant I needed framing. We stole some extra insulation from the attic, but I still had to get a 2x10 and cut it up. I needed another half sheet of 3/4" plywood for the subfloor, and we already had some leftover flooring from the Fridge Nook Project.

Now with framing and insulation

Even more subfloor!

Flooring is up and the project is complete

This much floor space is invaluable

The finished product

this part of the project turned out better than I expected. Seriously surprised that I got it all done in one day, and that extra floor space at the top of the stairs is priceless. It's really integral to the next step too!