#391...ipe staircase

One of the projects that Tyler had on his "to-do" list before the home tour was to fix the rotting wood staircase leading to our loft. Here is a before shot of the staircase....

...and here it is after Tyler's makeover

The staircase was made of treated lumber and held up to the outdoor elements for 8 years, but it was falling apart, and had become really dangerous to ascend/descend.

His first step was to remove the handrail, all the spindles and the stair rises.

In lieu of replacing the vertical wood spindles, he opted for a metal cable rail system for the railing. It claims to be weather proof and should not rust.

We tediously painted the remaining wood portions of the stair framing in gray and dark brown, using the DeckOver  product from Behr. 

We spent a lot of time debating what type of material to use for the stairs and banister. We decided to forgo a stair rise to give the stairs a more open and modern look (and also to cut down on material costs). 

I really did not want to replace with treated lumber, since it had weathered so badly, and wanted something that would last a lot longer than 8 years. After much research on composite options we ended up going with Ipe wood. This is the very same wood that we used on the cabana, and I recently blogged about letting it go gray here. Ipe is an expensive option, but it has a lifespan of up to 50 years, so we will NEVER have to do this project again.

Ipe is very dense and very heavy, so setting the banister in place took help.

Tyler also replaced the decking at the top of the stairs, which had also rotted.

And after several intense weeks of work with little sleep, he finished the stairs in the nick of time. And now our pretty new stairs are going to live happily ever after FOREVER!