Okay I have to admit I always wanted a cast iron spiral staircase so a few evenings of ebay with wine and I am the proud owner of a Scottish staircase in need of renovation.
I wanted an access to the first floor from the original shop as the current staircase from the library is very steep as the ceilings are 3 metres high .
My plan is to remove some of the ensuite changing room to the master bedroom and create a new access by removing a non load bearing wall
After removing a section of the shop ceiling and a section of the floorboards from the first floor changing room I have created a 1.3 metre x 1.3 metre access.The staircase as below has been temporarily fixed to work out the fixing points and height issues with the cross beams between the 1960 steel girders that I intend to leave exposed
To access this new opening from the first floor landing I needed to remove a section of the wall between the two front bedrooms .First work out the height of your new wall opening and remove the plaster and one brick. Place two Acro props either side of the wall with a solid wood beam to hold the wall up as you carefully remove one layer of bricks from under the beam by drilling out the mortar around each brick and working downwards removing only whole bricks . Where whole bricks have been removed going in the direction of the side walls leaving a gap I have plugged these with half bricks removed from opening up the fireplaces. This will support the wall to the floor joist as below
Getting natural light into the first floor landing is a planned big bonus from the walk in wardrobe/changing room window. All good bricks are cleaned of excess mortar and stored ready for next years extension . A wooden lintel/beam from the now removed library door opening is fitted into the two walls going into the walls a full brick width deep and a vertical post is fitted as below
Making good the side walls with plaster and fabricating a balustrade is adding the shape and safety features to the design.
Now when I bought the staircase there were 10 steps and the wooden steps were damaged in some sections. I also needed to fabricate 4 new steel steps as I needed 14 steps with 21 centimetre drops to match the height of the landing.
Investigating buying second hand wood that was 28 centimetres wide to cut into steps was very expensive so I also decided to fabricate 7 new steps from old 22 centimetre wide scaffold boards . The steel steps were fabricated by getting 4 x 73.2mm outer diameter and 70mm internal diameter tubes and 6mm steel plates cut into rectangles
I cut 4 centimetres wedges off each board leaving a 16 centimetre internal width and reversed the wedges and pinned and glued them back onto the board making a 28 centimetre wide end section . These were then sanded and stained with floor wax oil.
The original steps have the curved ends and the new steps are angular as below image
The steel was cut using a angle grinder and a 73 centimetre hole saw attached to a drill with a friend pouring water on the cutting area to cool the mild steel and assisting the cutting action . Another friend welded the triangle and rectangular struts onto the steel tube and the steps were primed and painted
Now I am ready to fix the wooden steps to the steel steps and locate the staircase in place before adding the side cast iron sections to form the outer handrail and enclosure... to be continued.........
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