Step by step...

Hello all. We left off our stairway project with the new treads and risers installed. In this and the next few posts we'll finish the job.

Two places that needed flooring were the top of the stairs and the small landing after the second step. We'll cover the former here. One thing we'd done months ago was to install a piece of 1/4-inch plywood to raise the level at the top of the stairs to make it level with the rest of the floor.

Then we cleared out and cleaned the area. That splash of white is paint from very early in the renovation when one of us butter-fingered a bowl of semi-gloss while painting the trim. 

Fortunately the red rosin paper covered everything and we were ready to lay flooring.

The most crucial pieces are always the threshold and boards that lead into it. That's where you want to ensure you're making 90-degree angles because otherwise your entire floor will be askew.

Here's how it looked all in place.

That left us with the part up to the stairs. We added a threshold in the doorway and had about 8 inches left to cover to ensure the rounded bullnose piece would overhang the top step the same as all the other treads.

Then we added a filler strip of about 3 inches to get us to the bullnose piece.

Then we had to get creative. The stair treads have a nice rounded bullnose edge but we couldn't use them at the top of the stairs. They're 1-inch high and our pine flooring is only 5/8-inches high. That would be too big a transition and could cause people to trip as they walked downstairs. The difference between the 5/8-inch flooring and the 3/4-inch boards we used for the threshold was manageable, so we decided to keep the latter height.

But a 3/4-inch pine board doesn't come with a rounded edge. What to do? That's a job that is perfect for a router. You start with a plain board.

Then select the right router bit for the job, in this case one that would make half of a hemisphere.

And you practice a lot to get the depth right and to router an end twice to make a full hemisphere.

The end result after some sanding looked remarkably like the edge on the store-bought treads.

More next time.