DIY TREADS AND RISERS

0:06 why hello there brent here with bring your own tools and on today's episode if you want to see how we completely transform this old sad stairwell from this to this keep on watching let it started in my previous video i showed how we completely transformed the flooring in both of these rooms but now we have to get to the stairwells and this stairwell as you can see is very roughed up due to the fact that they sprayed their texture and their paint all over them this is obviously due to the fact that they were

0:52 carpeted prior to this which is why we need to remove the front stair nosing as well as clean up all these surfaces i take my tape measure and mark a line based upon the depth of how far our tread nosing sticks out past our riser we do this because we want the entire rise section completely flush which makes the installation portion of this project much easier because we already have a stair nosing that matches our hardwood flooring i measured and placed a stop block that is attached to the stair tread and this way i can butt my circular saw right up against it and therefore have a perfect clean cut all the way across okay well not all the way across because eventually your circular saw will hit your stair skirts but that's where the

1:39 multi-tool comes into play because i'm able to quickly and easily remove the remainder of the stair nosing with my multi-tool my makeshift stop block is just adhered with two screws one on both ends and once that's secured you're easily able to take your circular saw and run it all the way across when you're coming back for the remainder just try and make sure that multi-tool is cutting straight sometimes it's not the straightest tool because it bends but you're easily able to remove any excess as needed this is a fairly quick and easy process as long as you have the right measurements and as i work my way up it's the same exact thing over and over again until i get to the very top because the very top has carpet still and instead of a tread we are working

2:24 with osb the only thing i'd like to highlight at this point is just to make sure that you're adjusting the depth of your blade so you're not potentially cutting into your riser as you cut off the lip of this osb i do a quick sweep of our stairwell and then grab my grinder with a quick strip disc now this disc is normally used for metal but it's a perfect disc to use when trying to remove paint and texture off wood i also have a dust shroud attached to my grinder in order to encapsulate and enclose all the dust is created that's also connected to my shop vac that way the vast majority of all these particles are being sucked into my vacuum and not spread throughout the entire house one nice feature with a shield like this is that you can actually take one side

3:09 off and get extremely close to the side of the wall now i can't get all the way there but with a small amount like that i just take my multi-tool to remove any excess that i don't want after i take care of all the treads i do go over the risers but i'm less worried about the risers because there's not going to be much pressure and use on them compared to the treads and speaking of treads this is the perfect time to remove any squeaks or squeals that you find when walking up and down your treads with a few screws now that we have all of our prep work taken care of we now have a proper surface to adhere our boards to now we have to actually figure out what our alignment is going to be and what our layout is going to be for our flooring that's going to act as our risers and our stair tread first things first we're going to be installing our

3:56 stair risers first which is going to butt up against this surface then we'll be installing our stair treads that butts up against it like this this also accounts for the fact that we have an amazing little nosing that we're gonna actually adhere after the stair riser is in place so it perfectly matches up and we don't have to ever see that edge anytime soon the one tool that makes life a lot easier in this circumstance is this this is a jig specifically for stair treads and razors and the way it works is that it's fully adjustable on both sides so it can determine the exact length and angle that you need at every single location now this is normally used for the stair treads but this also comes in extremely handy when doing the

4:41 risers especially if the size of your walls are not straight now that we know our exact dimensions i can then start on my materials and for our materials it's so nice because we're just working with the same flooring that we did previously on our last two videos if you haven't seen those videos i'll make sure and leave a link in the description box below i cut two pieces of flooring but i do cut them an inch long in order to account for angle adjustment then i pound the tongue and grooves together making sure they're aligned and set up my table saw based upon the height of my riser i do subtract about an eighth of an inch because we don't have to have it perfectly aligned with the riser and once we have our piece cut to the appropriate height i can then take my template and mark the exact angles

5:27 needed on both sides just make sure that both bottom corners align with the bottom panel and cut it to size on both sides and once you have both sides marked appropriately you can take it to your miter saw and cut both ends in all honesty on this staircase one side was almost perfectly zero degrees every single time but the other side actually did have to have a slight adjustment about a half a degree was all i needed but that degree did count for quite a bit especially when you want a perfectly flush fit this stair jig really does do an amazing job at templating the exact sizes just make sure that those bottom corners are on the same plane basically meaning that they are touching the flooring or the

6:12 tread below it at the same time now it's just the same process over and over again cutting the wood an inch long tapping them together putting them through the table saw then coming back and applying the template to the wood and then of course cutting the ends at the appropriate angle i was pretty conservative by making sure i wasn't cutting too much off and therefore i did have to make a couple extra cuts but most of them slid perfectly in place just like this since these cuts are so vital you want to take your time and patience when actually measuring and cutting everything so it does take a bit of time and energy to do that but the process itself is extremely easy and as long as you have the patience to do it and the tools you can for sure take this on but now that we have all of our risers taken

6:59 care of it's now time for our treads and with a stair tread it all starts with the nosing and this nosing is coming from flooring direct warehouse which is providing all the materials for this entire project and is the reason why they're the sponsor of this week's video the amazing thing about their nosing is that it's a perfect color match and it has a tongue and groove that connects perfectly within the flooring that way we have a perfect transition compared to other products on the marketplace that might not actually even have the same color match that this company does pretty remarkable and the fact that a square nosing is definitely a little bit more of a modern look compared to the rounded stuff is a huge factor in the long run when it comes to the desired look and feel of your space

7:45 if you're interested in checking out this beautiful engineered hardwood flooring from flooring direct warehouse i'll make sure and leave a link in the description box below but now let's get to cutting these treads i cut the nosing in two floor boards long just like i did the risers about an inch and once i have these three sections taken care of it's now time to put them all together now i've found two different ways of cutting these treads the first way was to actually just take these three pieces and assemble them appropriately together after they're all assembled i secured them as one fluid piece with just a few pieces of painters tape that way i know for certain that the seams won't move on me over time at this time i grab my template jig and place it right on top of the tread same

8:32 thing as the stair risers but on a flat surface and making sure that we have the proper angle and pushed right up against those stair skirts i then place the template right on top of our tread and make the appropriate lines just make sure the tip of your template matches up with the tip of the nosing i set my table saw to the correct depth then run the entire panel through the table saw this automatically provides me with the exact depth that i need for this entire tread and now all i have to do is cut both sides of the tread to the appropriate length as noted before you may have to do some slight minor adjustments to the angle in order to have the appropriate cut for our template line most of our angles were between zero and one degrees but there were a couple

9:18 angles that i needed to get a little bit more drastic on which was a 2 degree and a 2 degree might not sound like a lot but is drastic when you consider the size of these treads i make sure the tread fits snugly in place and then grab the upper riser and use that as a template line to where i need to make my final cut now that the template line is determined i can then take that template bring it back to the table saw and cut a perfect line all the way down i reposition the tread to make sure that it fits snugly with both risers in place and as long as that's taken care of and we're a good fit we're good to move on to the next piece and as for the next piece i'll also show you how i cut the second piece that's a little bit different than how i did the first one however the same scenarios

10:04 occur in the first few cuts making sure that i'm cutting the nosing and the two pieces of flooring at the same length but making sure that they're approximately an inch longer than needed where the process changes is that i take the measurement from riser to riser and determine how thick the back panel needs to be for the stair tread this way i have the length predetermined for our stair tread and after i have all three boards assembled properly i apply my painters tape to hold the boards in place and then use my tread template to guarantee that we have the proper angle over the entire span the keynote to add when templating this space is just make sure that the alignment on the back point of your template is the same on both sides i place a template right on top of our stair tread align the edge with the front of our nosing then place

10:51 our line onto the boards on both sides cut them at the appropriate angles make any adjustment needed on both sides and again one side may differ than the other once both sides are taken care of you can then position it snugly and away you go to the next one as i work my way up the stairwell nothing really changes until i get to the very top or i have to address the transition between the nosing and our carpet because we have stair skirts we have to maneuver our way around that and into the upstairs hallway we do this quickly and easily by taking the width of the hallway and then making a few marks to cut out the sections needed for skirts this has to be a very straight and orderly cut so i'm actually taking the table saw miter gauge and using that to make sure we have a perfectly straight

11:38 cut all the way across after we have both sides taken care of i then bring it back to our stairwell and make sure that it fits perfectly and once that final piece is guaranteed to fit we are ready to start applying our adhesive the adhesive we'll be using for this project is bostick's best adhesive and this is the same adhesive that we used for the flooring now we're using this adhesive because it's expensive and we have a little bit left over from our flooring but you can certainly use a general construction adhesive if you don't have one of these just lying around the application process is very similar to our wood flooring process because all i'm doing is using a quarter inch v-notch trowel to go over the entire surface and then installing our flooring or in this case our stair riser

12:25 in order for us to guarantee that these stair treads and risers don't move on us while we're working our way up i actually picked up this slick looking milwaukee pin nailer that is battery operated which makes it extremely easy to install nails across the perimeter of these boards to guarantee that these boards don't move on us while it's in the curing process the best thing about these nails is that they're 23 gauge headless nails which basically means you barely even see the hole where the nail penetration occurred after the first riser taken care of i then proceed to applying our adhesive to the first tread as well as the second riser that way i'm able to kill two birds with one stone and the application of the glue is actually a little less messy if i'm applying to both surfaces

13:11 at the same time i install the riser first and then the tread but i don't actually nail the riser before i install the tread i actually am just trying to make sure that everything is fitting snugly and nicely and you might need to grab a rubber mallet and just give a few love taps to make sure everything fits tight and then nail it in place that way you know all the seams are at the appropriate locations as well as the fact that the seam between the stair tread and the riser should be as seamless as possible as you're making your way up again same exact process apply the glue to the stair tread as well as the riser above it install the riser then install the tread push it into place give it a few love taps nail it in place and move on to the next one

13:59 as a general side note i do apply a few extra fasteners to the very top row on the riser because you're never going to see it once the stair tread above it is positioned properly once installed and nailed down i remove my blue painters tape and move my way up the stairwell this is actually extremely quickly as far as the installation process goes because everything is already pre-cut just make sure you either number your stair treads and risers or you don't mix them up because if you put one in the wrong position it won't fit properly and it's a mess to get up i did it once and i never want to do that again after i apply my glue to the top of the stairwell i then place the last piece of nosing in this stairwell make sure it's fully set and secured appropriately with a few more pin nails and then proceed to

14:45 some carpeting i'm certainly no carpet master but i did install a stack strip at the very end of this run and after i remove any of the excess padding needed i can then stretch some of the carpet at the very tail end and use a sharp razor blade to cut the exact amount needed while using the nosing as a guide for my razor blade now of course there is a secondary stairwell that is much shorter which is a lot easier to do and manage and i won't go over the entire process because the entire process is basically the same thing but there was one key difference with one of the stair treads randomly and that was because one of the stair treads actually had a very unique angle to it and in order to accommodate this variance i had to free hand my cut on

15:32 the table saw and make sure it was as straight as humanly possible not the easiest thing to do but just be careful and take your time when doing a cut like that in order to have a perfectly straight line all the way across your beautiful stair trim but this was basically the only difference between the two stairwells and therefore after we have all the treads and risers cut we glue and fasten them down appropriately and then move on to filling and as for filling we are using this robert's wood floor filler now we didn't have many seams but there was this one seam that i just did not like and it was a little bit excessive therefore i just squeezed a little bit of this filler in goodbye seam and away we went this can also be used for any of the nail holes that we had to

16:18 accommodate for but as we discussed earlier the pin nails really don't need to be filled at all because of how small they are but now that we have our holes and seams filled we are done [Music] i absolutely love how this entire stairwell turned out this is an incredible project from start to finish if you remember what they looked like before yeah that's what they looked like before really really rough but now it's back to a beautiful gorgeous stairwell that

17:04 people can enjoy for years to come it's completely transformed the entire look and feel of this space and the fact that we're using the same flooring and the nosing matches our flooring gives it a perfect transition between our floors and our stairs now that's what i call one beautiful sexy beast oh yeah