Building a Stairway

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! This year was a little strange, given that it was the first year without Grandpa.  The holidays are always a rough time of year when you've lost a loved one, especially when you typically spend the holidays with that loved one.  It really reminds you not only how much you miss that person, but also how important it is to spend time with those you love.  Yesterday we had family and friends over for lunch and games.  It's tough to change traditions, but new traditions are good too.  This year was also a little strange because it will be the last one we spend in our current house.  Again, new traditions are good so we're trying to focus on the excitement of moving versus the sadness of leaving the family home of 23 years.

Moving on from the sappy moment, this is still a few weeks old, but with the Christmas craziness, I have gotten a little behind on posting again.

Since the house is older, the stairways were extremely steep.  Like climbing a ladder almost.  For the house to be up to code after the remodel, the stairways had to be taken out and rebuilt less steep.  So the stairways are not only being "flattened" but are also being widened.  The basement stairs are especially wide now.  And the stairs leading to the second floor did not have much space to "flatten" so there is an extra step into the hallway at the top, and an extra step into the living room at the bottom.  

Here are some pictures of the stairs.  Currently the stairs are temporary so that the workers can get to the different levels of the house, but are a bit narrower in depth than they will be in the end.  Still it is fun for us to see the progression. Here are some pictures so you can see too!  And the best part about these pictures is that you can probably more readily see what I'm talking about than with a lot of the other stuff.

These are the stairs into the basement.  The gap on the left side is how wide the stairs will be when they are finished.

The view of the staircase from the dining room.

Dad showing off how much wider the stairs will be.

I told you it was exciting!

The new stairs going to the second floor.  I guess the picture makes more sense with what I was saying about the step going into the living room.  The stairway will stay open about half way up like it is in the photograph.

The stairs leading up, as seen from the master bedroom

The staircase from below.  You can kind of also see into the basement this way.

The stairs leading up again.

Ok, so lots of pictures that all look a little bit similar.  At least you can kind of get a better idea.