Hey Steemians

Hope you have been well. Today I want to show you a set of open frame stairs that I designed and built. Below is the rough sketch and my toddler son helped by coloring it with yellow markers. Lol

Okay so when I design using elements that already exist in the environment and designing functional structures that are open frame gives you the illusion of more space. The goal here was to design a set of stairs that is very thin profile but able to handle everyday functional use. Also to keep within the budget we will be doing all welding, fabrication, and selection of finish materials and not outsource any of the work out.

So here we have fabricated and welded the stringers. The stringers are metal C channels that will be painted a flat black and a 2x12 kiln dried Douglas fir that will be inlayed into the C channel for aesthetics only. The issue that many modern homes have is it feels cold with metal and concrete. A home should feel like a home so that is why I use wood to balance out the cold steel and make a home feel warm. Not cold and uninviting.

Now the treads on the stairs are installed.
They are nominal width structural 3x6 that are glued together and let to dry for over a month.
Then stained and waxed.
Every piece of this structure should serve a purpose and not just installed for aesthics only.
Exception is the inlay on the stringers as the metal c channel leaves a cold impression.

Now with the treads installed and bolted. You can now see the shadows from the treads. Shadow play and lighting is very important in interior design. It brings another element that is normally not considered. I will now use the shadows as a reference for the guardrail design.

I free hand the shadows with plywood to use later as templates. What freehand means to me is I do not measure I only eyeball it. And adjust. Also the plywood will serve as my templates for polycarbonate that I will later frost.

The metal angle bars are also installed for the stairs handrails and I install the wooden rails that progress from thinner to thicker widths.

Below is after frosting the polycarbonate and torching the wooden handrail with wax. I will do another post later on how I torch all the wood.

Hard to see but if you look close the polycarbonate rays line up with the shadows. Hence a sun dial type of effect.

More close ups.

Look how thin profile the stairs is yet it’s super strong.

More professional shot photos and after I also performed the home staging. Yes I do that also.

If you have any questions on the process, materials and design please comment

If you would like to use my designs.

I would be honored.
But in courtesy please upvote, follow and resteem.

Thanks for looking.

BTS EOS Steem for life. !!