How to Update Oak Stair Treads and Risers | Ask This Old House

[Music] so tell me a little bit about your problem well we have this set of stairs between our main floor and our lower level and you'll see some of them are cracked they make a lot of noise and the colors different we have a nice light color upstairs when we redid that and these are quite dark you know we've done a lot of projects around the house but this is one I'm not sure where to start okay so you want to tackle this project absolutely all right great well the stairs are amber color because it's obviously an oil base urethane and there are a lot of problems stair treads loose so it's noisy and there's a crack and there's gaps over here that I'll need to get filled you know what I can get you started if you think you can finish it absolutely [Music] let me give you a little bit of anatomy of this stairway on all stairways in general really so it starts right down here with this vertical board this is called a riser then we have a tread and so on up the stairway on each side we have our skirt board and that just dresses up the sides for the stair tread and the riser to end and address the stairway up a little bit under this nosy and they place this skull molding and that really just hides that crack it just dresses it up or finishes off and underneath all of this is the structural part of the stairway which are called the stringers and that holds everything up so you can walk on it now to get started the first thing I'm going to do is remove this little skull molding so we can then lift the stairs read up to cut all the nail so now I have to get underneath between this joint right here and the other side of the tread to get to the nails and cut them with a long metal cutting blade so the first thing I want to do is I want to pry this tread up just a little bit to get the blade in it I want to try to get the blade in between these top of the stringer and the underside of the tread if I just want to cut the nails not straight all right let's see if I can try that up now okay so now you see this part of the tread right here where it meets the riser this is called a rabbet cut right there that rabbit creates a tongue right there and that tongue fits into the dado the reason you do that on a stair tread would will expand and contract over its width this way if it's fastened to the stringers and it was tight against the riser when the wood dries out you'd actually end up with a little gap there and things can dirt can fall down behind it so that's why you do a dado and a rabbit cut okay now before we go any further I want to tighten up all these risers right here that we can get to bring them back against the skirt board and to do that all I have to do is get my hammer in here and bang the board out now to hold that in place I'm going to insert a shim right in back of it to hold the shim in place I'll put some glue on the shim and drive it in I'm gonna do that on all of them alright now that our skirt board and our risers are tight with a meet we are ready to start cutting the stair treads now this is a piece of 1 by 12 red oak it's been around for years and you can still buy it today bought this at the Home Center Street quarters of an inch thick and 11 and a half inches wide but these are too wide for your treads so we're gonna have to cut them down off the back I don't want to cut it off the front because there's a nosing on there and we want to leave that there okay now it's tricky to cut these because they have to fit in between two walls or two skirt boards but if I was to take this piece that I've cut square and I put it in and I drive it in tight to the riser in the back but push it over we have a big gap against the skirt board okay so we have to cut that custom tile it's a scribe cut take the same board and I bring it over here again square on this end I bring it in I put it tight to the riser and I have a gap here but it's on the front so these two lines or T two cuts are not square or parallel okay so how do we fix that what we're gonna do is we're gonna scribe or make a template in the middle alright so what I did is I took one of the old treads and I cut it a little bit shorter so it slides right down in here nicely the first thing I want to do is I want to put a mark somewhere on the riser I'm just gonna use that as a reference next I'm going to take my paper put it in and I slide it across keeping it tight to the riser I just take a straight edge and it could be anything but I'm going to use my small combination square take it in lay it on top and I slide it in so it's tight against the skirt board and hold it down my mark across there drag it out and do it again out here now I'm using a short piece as a guide because there's a little bit of a taper or a dip right here if I used a straight one it would bridge that gap and then this cut would have a space in it when I laid the new part in okay now before I move this I want to take and put a pencil line on my from my reference line off my riser and now I'm going to slide it all the way over keep it away from the wall slightly making sure that I'm tight against the back and do the same thing on this end put it tight to the skirt wood on this side hold it down and Mark this right there I don't want the paper to move bring it out slide it in take the mark now I have both ends scribed but I don't have the length yet so what I need to do is this is my first mark that I made off of this now I need to make my second mark which would be right here okay all right now we're ready to transfer a template March to our tread all right there's a couple of things I have to think about first of all I want to slide this over so that the line is quite a ways from the edge next I want to make sure that the template is even off flush with the back on each end so I make it flush there slide it out and I make it flush back here now I have to make sure that this doesn't move okay I'm going to lean on it hold it you have to take the same straight edge that I referenced from the skirt board and I put it on my pencil lines just like that I don't want to cover them I want to go right to the edge of them look like that and I mark it here slide it over and I mark it make sure I can see the line but I don't want to cover it if I cover it I'm gonna be too short okay so now before I move it I need to put my first reference line right here and Mark the tread now I slide this down and I put it on the second reference line right there making sure that this is even on the back flush with the back and on my reference line okay now I can't move it I'm gonna do the same thing on this end I want to be able to see that line and I mark this side of it slide it over and do the same thing again making sure that I can see the line and then mark it again all right so now I'm gonna use my smaller saw because this is not a straight cut I'm gonna try to follow the line as best I can now we flip it over now the next thing we need to do is cut the rabbit to the back of the tread to fit into the dado of the riser and we'll do that with a Rotter with the tread still off I want to clean up the righteous with my sander to make them flat and smooth now your existing rises a pine and you wanted to make them look like oak and we can make it look like oak with an open ear rather than tear them all out and try to get the new ones in that's a lot easier it's easy to make them out of veneer and this is just a peel and stick we'll cut them to fit stick them on alright now we're going to glue and nail the treads in place adhesive will act like a little bit of lubricant when they push it into the data [Music] [Music] loosing inches two-and-a-half-inch eight-penny finish nails in the air they keep it nice and tight against that construction [Music] there you go Eric three treads and freeriders all done bleeping oh it looks so much better already and I'm really glad we didn't put that skosh on well it's a nice look and it goes good with this type of house absolutely so we've done three do you think you can handle the rest no problem I know what to do now all right it's a big job but I think you can do it I got time now you got some work cut out afterwards you're gonna have to prime and sand the skirt boards a little bit because we damage them as we cut the and bent the threads into place and then you're gonna sand them lightly and put your finish on to match up top any advice on doing the finishes well this is a stairway or stairway in my house you know people want to use a stairway what I like to do is I do the stairway just before I go to bed I'll have it all prepped ready to go the big problem is is you've got to go up the stairs and then go down and do it that way but nobody has to go on the treads all night they dry in the morning you could walk on them we can make that happen all right well good luck with it thank you so much all right Eric thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you'd like we can see click on the subscribe button make sure that you get our newest videos writing your feet

Channel: This Old House

Views: 1,077,871

Rating: 4.8619885 out of 5

Keywords: tom silva, stairs, This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Kevin o’connor, kevin o'connor house, kevin o'connor this old house, kevin o'connor ask this old house, kevin o'connor interview, tom silva this old house, tom silva house, tom silva construction, tom silva tools, tommy silva

Id: hOcPPO4LRfI

Length: 11min 50sec (710 seconds)

Published: Sun May 05 2019