Reinforcements

Home repair #1 is done!

Three of the stair treads have been cracked across their length since we bought the house in 2014. Neither of us have the knowledge to replace them ourselves. Nor did we ever have the money to have someone replace the entire tread.

I called in some reinforcements.

After $16, I had what I needed:

• two 34″ lengths of board (the third, shorter length in the picture was left over from cutting the big plank)
• a 1″ wide bit of poplar

Shout out to the guy at Home Depot who made me feel like an idiot because I asked if he could cut my board, and then suggested I use some shims to bracket the board in place. Way to go, my man.

Since Home Depot won’t cut lengths less than 12″, the guy who helped me could only cut the board for me, then suggested “just shim it all in place”. Yeah, no. Whatever, I’ll find something I can cut myself. I found a poplar turning blank that looked just right to do what I needed.

Who knows what minor project came from, but there was a small hand saw in the basement. I had the four supporty bits I needed after about 15 minutes of cutting. Are they all squared and pretty? Nope. Do I give a shit? Also nope.

Then it was time to bust out the power tools. I pre-drilled through the supporty bits. Was I supposed to do it like this? Don’t know. Don’t care.

JUST LOOK AT THAT PRECISION DRILL JOB Y’ALL.

Then came the fun. Even with the step stool, I could barely reach to screw the supporty bits into the riser. Additionally, this project really needs three hands: two to screw and one to hold the board in place I ended up screwing the 2″ screws halfway through the supporty bits first. Thankfully, the side between the risers near the top step was slightly narrower than the 34″ length of wood. I wedged the plank into its spot and didn’t have to worry about holding it in place.

The second plank seemed like it would be a little more difficult without help. However, I was able to improvise an assistant.

Previous owners had built a small shelf under the stair I was working on. The container of wipes was just right. It wasn’t flush, but it didn’t need to be. It just needed to hold up the board on the side I wasn’t drilling on. And it did the job as expected. All told, I think it took less than an hour to do everything.

You can see some darker wood at the top of the picture. That’s from a similar repair done by the previous owner.

Mine actually looks better 🔨