Let’s learn how to make a beautiful and precise stairway. Building stairs seems challenging, but it’s really rather simple if you use the right formula. This is how you measure and build professional-looking stairways with exact accuracy.

Before we can start the process of building stairs, we’ll need to take some measurements of the stairway area. We can think of it this way: we have a certain amount of height that we need to reach and we need to do it within a certain length or distance. The part of the stairs that helps us accomplish the height is the stair riser. The length part is the stair tread. The part of the stairs that will hold all the weight is called the stringers. The stringers are the most important part of the stairway.

The treads are usually standard-sized boards around 10-inches. The size of the risers depends on the measured height from the bottom floor up to the top floor.

Now we need to get an exact measurement from the bottom floor to the second floor, including the second floor particle board. Now, we use the formula for getting the height of each stair riser. Suppose the distance from bottom floor to top floor including the thickness of the second floor is about 9 feet or 108 inches.

Next, we use the magic formula of the number 7. 108-inches divided by 7 equals 15.428. That number tells us that 15 stair risers are needed. Next, we divide 108 by 15 and that gives us around 7-inches or the exact height that each riser needs to be. The stair treads are usually around 10-inches. The number of treads is always one less than the number of risers, so to find the total run or length of the stairs, we multiply 10 by 14 and that shows that our stairway will be 140-inches long.

Now, select a knot-free 2 X 12 stringer. We can get prefabricated wood or a cheaper selection can be a strong softwood like Fir or pine. It needs to be about one foot longer than your stair distance. This would need to be 120″ or twelve feet long.

Lay the board flat on a level surface and measure up the board about 8 inches to mark the first stair tread. For accuracy, you will need to use a carpenter’s square to measure 10-inches over (the tread) and 7-inches up (the riser). We’ll do this on each step until we finish each stair. When that is all done, well need to go back to the bottom of the board to measure, mark, and cut out the first riser. The carpenter’s square can help to make the stair cut exactly 7-inches high by 10-inches wide.

When this stair is marked we can cut out the stairs with a handsaw or a Skilsaw. We will cut almost to the inside corner, but we’ll need to complete the cut with a handsaw to cut clear to the corners. When we finish that we can use it as a pattern or a template for the other stringers by tracing in the steps.

After that we can stand them up and secure them with screws or nails. Once the stringers are set securely in place well put the tread plates on and then the riser plates if we dont want see through stairs. You can buy special tread boards that are rounded in front. They work well for carpeted stairs. If we want to have hardwood stairs that are exposed, we will want to use high quality oak or some other quality hardwood. That’s how we make our stairs.