Stairs In Progress

As I was going through the pictures I took over the weekend, I realized I don't have any of the current state of things. So I'll have to take some more pictures tomorrow to finish documenting what was done.

One last look at our stairs in their "pre" state, minus the temporary railing up top.

 A look at the landing, since it was going to be a big change.

 Ethan helping his daddy dismantle the old railing.

 Gotta love hammering!

 T is for Terral

 This is one of the things that prompted a whole staircase redo instead of just putting in new railing. some of the steps had been cut out for the old posts.

 Hooray for removing yucky carpet!

 Matt tearing out the wall beneath the stairs.

 Ethan was fascinated by all the destruction. And he loved hanging out with Karalee too. :)

 And the crow bar becomes a gun. Bang!

 Sorry for all the dust particles. The flash had to go off and it really highlighted all the junk in the air. It was pretty amazing to watch Dad tear down the drywall under the stairs and see pounds of dirt fall to the ground. Um, gross. Did they never vacuum?

 Matt and dad cutting into the old floor to make room for the new landing.

 Mom and Karalee did lots of sanding and staining. Terral and I jumped back and forth doing lots of things, but we spent quite a bit of time doing this too.

 And here are the beginnings of our new stairs! Dad and Matt really figured things out well. All our needs were addressed without making the stairs too obtrusive into the narrow family room. As Matt said, I really did hit the family jackpot. We really are so grateful for their willingness to share their time and talents with us!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple funnies from this weekend:

1) Mom was trying to complement Terral, but she made us all laugh because she kept saying that he is very easily entertained. She meant that he has a creative mind, and was surprised that most people mean that someone is simple minded when they use that phrase.

2) Ethan has a little tape measure he got at a white elephant party last year. It's a tape measure for dumb blonds and has pictures of feet instead of numbers. Matt needed to measure something, and mom apparently hadn't woken up completely yet that morning because she brought him Ethan's tape measure instead of a real one. She didn't even realize it until she saw Dad laughing.