Having inspected it, I have no idea what was holding this stair in place (if anything). There was just the slightest tip of a nail protruding through the end of one of the floor joists - certainly not enough to hold the stair securely. As the stair joist itself had signs of woodworm, I decided it was best to replace it.
Amazing what you find when scrabbling under the floorboards... yuk!!
A piece of left over 6" x 2" joist timber was just the job although not quite as deep as the original. I drilled and counterbored holes to take 4 x No12 screws which will secure to the ends of the two available floor joists.
Next, a leftover piece of 22mm MDF window board was cut down to size, the edges planed straight and square and then rounded off with a 6mm radius in the router.
Using the MDF board to gauge the correct height, the joist timber was screwed into position on the ends of the floor joists.
The MDF board was then drilled with a number of offset holes and countersunk.
This was then screwed into position on top of the new joist timber. A couple of offcut blocks were sized to fit under the joist and provide additional support onto the bricks below.
A piece of 18mm chipboard was cut to size and then drilled and screwed onto the face of the joist to provide a fascia.
And a quick coat of primer was then applied to seal in the exposed timber.
Meanwhile, the old piece of skirting had been filled, sanded and primed so I was now able to re-fit it using grab adhesive.
Whilst working on the landing, I took the opportunity to sand down the door architrave for bedroom 2. This is quite an intricate moulding and was in need of a bit of restoration where bits had been dented or gouged out over the years. 2 part filler was applied to the affected areas and then sculpted to shape using a combination of chisels and sandpaper.
I rebated the hinges using the router for a neat finish, then finished off the corners by chisel.
Likewise with the rebate for the latch. The hole for the latch barrel was then bored using a 25mm flat bit and then a 16mm flat bit was used to drill the holes for the spindle.
Just to prove that things don't always go to plan, one of the doors had a bit of an incident... It was left leaning against a damp cloth for a couple of hours and, being made from compressed fibre board, it ended up quite swollen and stained. The damaged patch was about 3mm proud of the door surface!
Knowing that these doors are made from MDF which is steamed and pressed under high pressure, I figured that an iron might help sort things out. I started with a heat gun to warm the surface and drive out as much of the moisture as possible. Then, protected with a sheet of paper, I applied the iron, pressing firmly onto the affected area.
Eventually, I managed to get the patch almost flush with the surrounding surface. I had to resort to fine grit sandpaper to finish it off but, unfortunately, this meant that some of the texture pattern was lost.
A sharp craft knife was used to scratch new grain texture into the surface. This was tempered with a light sanding to blend it in with the surrounding texture.
A coat of acrylic primer was used to re-seal the surface ready for final painting.
And here is the end result... well, one of them is... but which one?
Jacqui has continued to sand the woodwork on the landing and stairwell this weekend.
Back to bedroom 2, the skirtings, window frame and door frame have now had a couple of coats of primer/undercoat, followed by a couple of topcoats of quick-dry satinwood. The ceiling has had a mist coat followed by a top coat of white matt emulsion and the walls have had a mist coat.
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