Almost time to fix the concrete

It's been this way since the beginning.

Ok, it's much much cleaner now, but it's still rather soulless.

This past Fall, the place next door to us was being worked on by the city. This included replacing hundreds (if not a thousand) bricks on the breezeway wall facing our entrance. A much improved situation, I'll agree, but the scissor lift did a hell of a job on our concrete ... cracks are bigger... one slab seems to have dropped 1/2". Not good. I don't think they're coming back to fix it, as they promised, either.

So it's time to start thinking about either digging it all up and re-pouring, or resurfacing. No way in Hades am I pouring the same grey/green sidewalk-looking, parking lot eyesore slab.

No, I want stamped and dyed concrete. Patterned in brink.















I want it, but not sure of the cost. I'm thinking... A LOT.

But first thing's first... we can't dig up and pour without setting in a new fence first, and our wrought iron fence has been locked up in the back yard for long enough. Time to start looking for the Sandstone base and a welder.

This is what I'm looking to base our plan on, although our fence is hairpin & loop (see pic below).




























Not exciting, but it was 100% free. :-)

Of course, we could dig up the front slab (it's going away forever, I want a small garden plot in the front) and we could find a brick walkway under all that concrete. Who knows. Demo is a very exciting time.

Now where are those jackhammers?

Country Ribs with Apples and Roasted Root Vegetables

This recipe is my own creation. It's really very easy and the flavors are both complex and comforting. The end result is comfort food that's not totally over-the-top. Country ribs aren't actually ribs, but rather a cut of blade steak or similar. They're both cheap and exquisite when slow cooked or braised. I used both a saute' pan and a chef's pan for this dish rather than a large roaster and I found both cooking and clean up to be much easier. Basically, you want a larger skillet for vegetables and a smaller, stove-top-safe pan for the pork.

Total cooking time 2 hours, 30 minutes. Active cooking time about 30 minutes.
Serves 2

Ingredients
2 large "country" ribs (I selected slightly thicker cut "ribs")
3 medium parsnips, peeled, cut into 3" pieces

2 large carrots, peeled, cut into 3" pieces

1 large onion, peeled, cut into 2" wedges

1 winesap apple (or granny smith), cored and cut into 6 wedges

4 small sprigs fresh rosemary

1/2 cup dry white wine

12 oz. home made chicken stock, divided

salt and pepper, to taste

1 tsp arrowroot in 3T water, stock or white wine.

3T olive oil



Pre-heat the oven to 350'F. Lightly oil both pans. Salt and pepper the country ribs and place bone-side down (if there is a bone side), or with the fattiest side up in the smaller pan. Arrange the rosemary on, under and around the pork. Place a few of the carrot, parsnip, and onion pieces around the pork. Add white wine and about 6 ounces of chicken stock to the pan. Heat on the stove until the liquid is hot and then place in the oven. Set your timer for 1 hour.
Toss the remaining vegetables with oil, salt, and pepper in the saute' pan. Lightly oil the apple wedges. When the timer goes off, add the apples to the pork pan, turn the pork, and place on the top rack. Place the vegetable pan on the bottom rack. Set the timer for 1/2 hour and increase the temperature to 375'. After 30 minutes, toss the vegetables so that they brown evenly, and turn the pork again. Return to oven and increase temperature to 425'. Set timer for another 30 minutes (Note: the timing is not critical. The idea is to move the meat and vegetables around so that they brown evenly and/or stay moist. I just find that the timer helps keep me on task so I don't forget).

Warm the plates (I use the microwave for 2 minutes). When the pork and vegetables are done remove pans from the oven. Keep the vegetables in the pan to stay warm. Place the pork pan on a burner and place the country ribs on plates along with the cooked apples and vegetables that were with the pork. There may be some sticking. Plate what you can, leave what you can't. Pour or spoon off any excess fat. Turn the heat up to high-medium and add the remaining stock. Bring to a boil and scrape the bottom of the pan loosening any brown bits and remaining apple or vegetable pieces. When the stock has reduced to about 6 tablespoons (about 5 minutes), add the arrowroot slurry. Stir and simmer for 10 seconds.

Plate the remaining vegetables and spoon the sauce around the pork.
Serve with a fruity zinfandel or Pinot Noir.

(BTW, if you are new to this blog, we have a fairly robust collection of recipes interspersed with our how-to projects. Find them here.

Replacing Bricks and Pointing

Strangely, I'm feeling a Pink Floyd moment coming on...

Actually, this weekend was a chance to REALLY get my brain around the mortar, pointing up, and historically appropriate mortar thing.

See, we had some deteriorating bricks on the un-painted side of the house and we were thinking that we needed to get on the worst of those bricks. You can see one of the ones I left un-done this weekend below.


Why did I leave that poor "water damaged" brick when I was right there working on two others? Well, I'll tell you why. Those bricks are TOUGH. I mean, HARD. SOUND. You'd think that a spalled brick such as that would have been soft and crumbly. You'd be wrong. There was damned little wrong with the bricks that they built this house from.

So what was with those deteriorated brick? Mortar. HARD mortar. HARD to chisel out.

Mortar used to be sacrificial. That is, it was meant to to fail before the brick does. Mortar is easy to replace. Brick is not so easy to replace. An old brick home is designed to aspirate an water that gets in. BUT water, brick, and mortar expand and contract at different rates as we go through freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw cycles.

So what happened, as far as I can tell, is that some time long ago, maybe 40, 50, or even 60 years ago, someone did a bunch of brick work and really packed the mortar in around these bricks. And they used very hard mortar. As a result, when the brick got moist and then froze, there wasn't any place for it to expand to, and so the front of the brick cracked and then crumbled.

That's the bad news. The good news is that a lot of those bricks look bad but are just fine--very hard and sound. Of course, if I care about how they look, then I've got a very tough task ahead of me if they are all as sound as these three were. I spent 4 hours cutting out 3 bricks and replacing them. I hit my hand with a brick hammer at least 2 dozen times. I can bring in a hammer drill, and I will, I suppose, but this task is not the cake-walk I expected.

In any case, onward. So we don't have this problem again in the future, I made doubly sure that my mortar was soft enough. I came to the conclusion that my prior mix was still way too hard for what I want to do. The trick is to use less than 20% portland vs. your portland+lime mix. Here's what I used:

1 Part Type N Mortar
2 1/2 Parts Lime
5 Parts Sand
Dye to taste



Why dye? Well, lime and Type N are both rather grey. This doesn't look much like the existing mortar and is thus unaesthetic. A little bit of putty colored concrete dye really makes the mortar almost invisible and if you use sand that is close to what is already there, it completes the illusion.

So, here's the step by step.

To replace bricks

1) chisel out as much mortar as you can,
2) using a small or even pointed chisel, break the brick and pry out pieces.
3) chisel out any remaining mortar and make sure the cavity is clean and sound.
4) size the cavity vs. the replacement brick. All bricks are not the same size.
5) either spray the brick with water or use a wetter mortar mix--those bricks suck up water.
6) don't over-pack the cavity with mortar. You want to seal the brick in, but you don't really want mortar between the inside and the outside course of bricks. It's Ok to leave a pretty good air pocket behind the mortar and the brick.
7) smooth the mortar with a pointing trowel. If you need to, you can lightly spray the mortar with water to create a neat finish.
8)After the mortar sets for a bit, come back with a brush and a spray bottle and knock off any excess mortar on the face of the brick.

The tools I used were a standard triangular trowel, a pointing trowel, and a rectangular trowel. The latter was best for mixing mortar in the bucket. The pointing trowel was great for getting into the gap between the bricks and for pushing mortar off the triangular trowel and into the wall.

One last tip: if you are pointing, start someplace that's hard to see. You'll be messier when you start, and will get better as you go.

Update: It's Been Too Long

It has been too long since our last real renovation/DIY update. We're sorry about that. Regular work makes for less time, but also, we're so used to "doing things" that we're usually done before we realize that we should have taken a shot or two and written a blog post.

We'll try to do a bit better. At this point, much of what we are doing is repairs and redecorating. Redecorating was about the last thing on our minds for the past several years, but a couple months ago, Mrs. OrDie says to me, "You know those color codes I told you about?"

"Yeah..."

"Red means Beef. Blue means chicken. Pink means intestines/stomach. Antique white, however, means 'RENTAL'."

"Uh-oh!"

"Yep. We're putting some color in this place..."

And so it went. It's not as easy for people like us as you'd think, but so far, we've got our living room painted a neat warm color "Mississippi Mud", and the guest bath is a bright cranberry red. Both are huge improvements, though both took a whole lot of samples and sample painting to get right.

We'll try to get a post up on color selection and painting tips next week. With some luck, we'll have a post regarding the completion of the bedroom mural soon after that.

In the mean time, DIY'ers might want to check out the Rehabbers' Manual (scroll down to the first installment to go through them in order). Or just browse back through the blog. We came a long way and have a lot of good stuff up in past postings.

Recipe: Gorgonzola Bunny

(photo courtesy of MaslowskiWildlife.com)

Last night, we enjoyed this wondeful dish during an extended power outage. It is even better with candle light on a cold blustery night.

Gorgonzola Bunny
(takes 1/2 hour to prep, and 2-2 1/2 hours to cook.) For 4 people:

2 large rabbits
2 T Tarragon, divided
1 cup flour
ample salt and pepper to taste
2 T olive oil (as needed)


2 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
2 bay leaves
3-4 springs of fresh thyme
2-3 onions (based upon taste and size/room)
2 large turnips
3/4 lb carrots (less or more to taste)
2 cups Chicken broth (enough to cover--best quality made with feet*)
1 cup of dry white wine.
1/3 lb Gorgonzola (Italian is better, if it's not really sharp, try Danish Blue instead)
Fresh Tarragon for garnish or to add to sauce (optional)


First, bone the rabbit. I separate the back legs and then simply cut the meat off each in as large pieces as possible. Then I cut the meat from the front legs, and slice the saddle off both sides. I then cut the loins off by running a sharp blade down either side of the back bone. This is tricky and a bit like filleting fish, pulling the meat out with your thumb and scraping along the spine and ribs with the knife. It's worth the effort however. If you don't feel comfortable doing this, you can cut the whole loin section apart from the ribs and worry about pulling the meat once it's cooked. If you REALLY don't want to bone the rabbit at all, you can have the butcher cut it into pieces, but your guests will have to eat the meat from the bone and some may be squeamish.

Once boned, dredge the rabbit pieces in flour seasoned with 1/2 of the tarragon and ample salt and pepper. lightly brown in a non-stick pan and place in your dutch oven or covered pan. I like to add a half tablespoon of the seasoned flour to the pan with a little more olive oil, to cook for a few minutes. This will act as a thickening agent. De-glaze pan with wine and a bit of stock and pour into the dutch oven with the rabbit pieces.

Peel and coarsely chop the carrot, onion, and turnips. Add to the pot with the rabbit. Add remaining tarragon, thyme, garlic, and bay leaves. Cover with best quality chicken stock, bring to a simmer, and then place in a 350' oven for 1 1/2 hours. Add about 1/3 of the Gorgonzola to the pot, in small pieces. Return the pot to the oven for another 10 minutes or so.

Serve on plates or wide bowls. Arrange the rabbit and vegetables so that you can place small pieces of Gorgonzola on each bit of rabbit. Pour hot broth from the pot over the pieces of rabbit so that it melts the Gorgonzola into a glaze. Serve with a nice pinot noir and a salad of bitter greens with a Dijon vinaigrette.

Note 1: if you bring the sauce back to a simmer it will help the Gorgonzola melt when you pour the sauce over the rabbit. Note 2: on herbs, I've found that one can omit the thyme without much ill effect and if you don't have fresh, don't add thyme at all. Also, the tarragon need not be fresh. Dried seems to work quite well and should not be omitted.

*chicken feet are available at better poultry sellers. They impart a velvety mouth feel to stock and hence the sauces made from the stock. If feet are unavailable when you are making chicken stock, you can come fairly close by including a generous number of chicken breast bones along with backs and necks.

Flageolets Salad with Goat Cheese and Bread

This is a very nice, complex, satisfying salad and it's very good for you too. Adapted from an old Bon Appetite recipe and something I read on the splendid table.
Flageolets Salad with Goat Cheese and Bread
(serves 4)
Beans

• 1 cup flageolets or other white bean (flageolets are best, trust me), soaked in cold water overnight
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 yellow onion, halved
• 1 rib celery
• 1 carrot, halved
• 2-4 sprigs parsley
• Water to cover
• Salt and pepper to taste

Drain the beans and place them in a covered pot with the onion, bay, celery, carrot, and parsley. Cover with water by 2" and cook 2 hours. Drain and reserve 1 cup of the cooking liquid. You can do this days in advance and just keep the beans in the fridge.

• Herb Dressing and Salad:
• 2 1/2 tablespoons fruity extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
• 1 cup Cerignola olives, cut from the pits
• 4 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 4 large fresh basil leaves, chopped or torn
• 2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 clamshell fresh field greens

The dressing is for both the beans and for the salad. To make the dressing, whisk the 2 T. EVOO and 1 T. of lemon juice together. Add the garlic, rosemary, thyme, and half the parsley and whisk in. Taste for balance and adjust with more olive oil or lemon. Toss half of the dressing with the greens and Cerignola olives.
To finish the beans, in a small skillet, a heat the remaining dressing for a few minutes, until the herbs and garlic sizzle a bit. Add the bean cooking liquid and the beans, increase the heat to high, and boil for 30 seconds or until warmed through, then simmer until the liquid is absorbed. Add the remaining lemon and remaining olive oil, if any and salt and pepper to taste.
Arrange the greens on plates, and mound a half cup of beans atop. Scatter the remaining parsley and basil over the salad. Serve with fresh goat cheese on toasted French or Italian bread. Garnish with a sprig of fresh rosemary.

Bachelor's Blackened Chicken Salad

Those who know me, know that virtually all my cooking is from scratch, especially sauces and dressings. Not this one. This dinner is super fast, and super simple. I use the mildly sexist term "Bachelor" as a metaphor anyone who has limited time for or interest in cooking and who's cooking skills pretty much end at the grill

This is a perfect summer dinner with a lot of flavor, and not too many calories. Prep time should be less than 30 minutes

Feeds two.

Ingredients

1 t. paprika (use a bit more if sweet, less if hot)
2+ t. salt
1 t. garlic powder
1/2 t. cayenne pepper (more or less to taste)
1 t. black pepper
1/2 t. dried thyme
1 t. dried oregano
1 split (i.e. both halves!) boneless, skinless Chicken breast.

1 summer tomato, wedged or 2 "Campari" tomatoes out of season.
1 head romaine (fresh from the garden is great, but hearts from the store are fine).
4T. Best quality jarred blue cheese dressing (or to taste).
1t. red wine vinegar

Start the fire. It should be hot and on one side of grill (a.k.a. "indirect grilling method"). Mix the spices together with a fork on a large plate. Lightly salt the then coat the chicken breast with the blackening rub. Be generous. Tip: If the chicken breasts are quite large, or if you have very little time, cover with plastic wrap on a cutting board and pound down to a uniform 3/4" thickness.

Quick version: Grill the chicken until done.

Long version: Grill the chicken over direct fire for 3-4 minutes on one side, then turn and grill another 3-4 minutes. The breasts should be just barely charred. If they are firm to the touch, move off the fire or even off the grill to a warm plate. If the chicken is still resilient to the touch, turn and move just off the fire, and grill indirectly for another 3 minutes. If firm, move to a warm plate to rest. If not, turn and repeat until done. A pounded, thin breast will grill much more quickly. A very cold, large breast is going to take more time. Don't rush it.

While the chicken is resting, arrange your lettuce and tomatoes on the plates. Drizzle with the vinegar and the blue cheese dressing. Slice the chicken breasts across the grain and plate atop the lettuce. Serve.

Serve with a pinot noir or any red that can handle spice. I suspect that a vino verde will work well for white wine fans.

Historic Preservation

As many may know, our little river city (like many cities) is dealing with some serious budget issues. Thus, many folks are discussing places to save money. As part of one of these discussions, it was suggested that Covington get rid of it's historic preservation officer and have those duties be taken over by Code Enforcement.

This is a horrifyingly bad idea.

First off, and let me be clear about this, I love our code enforcement folks--at least those I've met and have dealt with, past and present. That said, those guys are busy enough as it is. It's unlikely that they have the skill sets necessary to promote and ensure historic preservation and it's unlikely that they'll have time to acquire the skill sets--they're busy enforcing the code and trying to keep Covington livable and safe. But let's assume that these guys, somehow, could find the time and energy to get up to speed on all the historic districts, the preservation briefs, federal requirements, national historic register requirements, resources and best practices (etc., etc.). Historic preservation is a full time job. If the officer misses a beat, a treasure can be lost. For good. The thing is, code enforcement guys get busy, especially at certain times of the year. Some of what they do is a matter of life and death, too. They cannot and should not make historic preservation their first priority when lives are at stake. This makes historic preservation duties and code enforcement duties incompatible--even in the artificially optimistic construct that I created here.

Now, some might say, "But is that level of concern about historic preservation even warranted? In times of tight budgets, can we really afford the luxury of historic preservation?"

The answer is this: Yes, indeed, concern for our historic housing and building stocks is even MORE important now. In fact, we can't afford NOT to have a dedicated historic preservation officer.

In times of tight budgets, a town needs growth in both business and population. Our housing stock is a huge attraction for potential residents and businesses. It's available. It's affordable. And, it's beautiful. Our wonderful historic buildings are why we moved here and it's why we bought here. Anyone who has traveled around this country much knows that not every city has the wonderful (and largely contiguous) historic architecture that our Northern Kentucky "Cote d'Azur" has. This historic housing stock is really a gem. It's also a gem that helps increase our tax base and our tax revenues.

In fact, when one stops to think on it, what is our town WITHOUT all of our wonderful historic architecture? I'll tell you what it is: Just another small, undifferentiated town deriving it's meaning from the 2nd tier city across the river. Yuk!

There's a reason why historic architecture has value--not everyone has it. And, once it's gone, it's gone. You can't replace it. It is, in economic terms, a dwindling asset. It will only become more rare and large pockets of historic real estate are, and will become, even more rare and more valuable. So, what we've got makes us special now and if we can keep it, it will make us even more special going forward into the re-urbanization of our region.

So, yes, we do need a dedicated, full time, historic preservation officer if we intend to keep this city a worthwhile place to live. This isn't just about esthetics, it's also about keeping our town economically viable. Fortunately, our HPO is quite good. She has a passion for history and architecture, a deep knowledge base, and a desire to help residents do the work necessary to save and preserve our properties. She is personally and substantially invested in our city. I have personally found her to be generous with her time and resources. We're very lucky to have her.

Not Chamomile? Nope.

When Beth came over last week to take pictures of our home, she pointed at a bunch of flowers, growing in a 2' bush like clump, and asked, "what are those?"

I matter of factly regurgitated what I had been told that they were.

"Chamomile."

She looked at me quizzically and asked, "Are you sure?"

To which I promptly responded something in the overly confident affirmative.

















Which of course, got me wondering.
And researching.























This (above) is Chamomile. This is not what we have.

And now, you know what? I have NO IDEA what our plants are.

So, if you've come to my garden in the past years, and you've been happily handed a clump of potted flowers with the assumption that you've gotten this lovely smelling chamomile.... please don't make any tea out of it until we figure out exactly what this sucker is.

Composite flower head, multiple (layered) bracts, alternate lobed leaf arrangement on stem. Plant height approximately 2 feet tall. Bushy in nature. When crushed, stems, leaves and heads smells faintly of menthol. Pleasant smelling.


















I'm starting with the Aster Family.
Only some 5000 more plant identifications to look at.
http://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/Plant_Families/Asteraceae.htm

UPDATE: I think I found it. Could this be Feverfew (Chrysanthemum parthenium)?? If so, don't make tea out of it if you are pregnant -- but it's ok for a headache. --Whew!

$37,500 FINE PER DAY!

(uncredited photo from Fine Homebuilding)

As some may remember, I'm the certified lead-safe work practitioner here. I've made other posts on the matter and my position is that you don't need to freak out, but you have to use some common sense and a modicum of care.
Obviously, I'm not going to get hysterical when others don't do it perfectly, and I generally just warn folks who aren't doing it right to clean up before hugging kids and to keep their kids out of their dirty truck, don't dry sand, and the like. Adults are harder to hurt with lead. Kids are all too easy. So, besides worrying about the kids, I'm pretty mellow with regard to contractors not under my watch, but it really rankles to see folks pretending to be qualified to deal with lead paint while subjecting everyone including neighbors to unacceptable amounts of lead dust.

It looks like the hammer is coming down, finally. I have mixed feelings about level of the fines, but it is very much time to stop giving these guys a free pass.

EPA Nabs First Lead Contractor

I guess what I'd really like to see is for the EPA to have more realistic and meaningful standards and then do more enforcement on egregious malfeasance like this (using electric sanders on the outside of the building without any containment).

The downside of draconian EPA enforcement measures (as you may see in the comments on that blog posting) is that no contractors will work on older homes, or when they do, they either charge an arm and a leg, or they simply remove lead painted trim (or have it removed in the dead of night) rather than strip it--killing the historic charm of yet more buildings and perhaps creating more, worse health problems.

So, Good on the EPA for hammering a dangerous violator but now it's time to loosen lead clearance standards, firstly--they're meaningless now-- and then encourage compliance with best practices without using fear and intimidation for minor infractions.

The award.

I want to thank whomever nominated us for the Covington Preservation Society Award thing we went to tonight. I'm sure someone meant well, and we both thank you for your intent... but please, next time-- please don't.

We did not build this home from the inside out for anyone but ourselves. We designed it from scratch, built it with our own four hands, and we had hopes that others would follow in our footsteps. That's the reason we created this blog- to inspire, to help, to advise, and above all-- learn from our mistakes.

We did not rehab our home in order to meet any requirements other than our own use and enjoyment, so an award is not necessary, but more importantly, an award wherein the sole intent seems to be to showcase the Historical Society's disappointment at our inability to 'restore' our home to some historical standard, (when we bought our home it was, as you can see from this blog, a total mess with NOTHING to preserve) and therefore to present us as a sub-standard disappointment was humiliating.

To explain - the other 'Historical Renovation Award' recipients were photographed beautifully, special care taken to show the careful paint choices, the woodwork, and of course, the decor. Ours? We got a great photo on the front of our award highlighting the chain link fence we have yet to replace with the wrought iron one in the back yard. Any pictures of the corbels we spent days researching and painting? The hand made sills, the stone work?

Oh, and the picture of the spray foam installation. Yeah, THAT was a keen choice to present to the Historical Preservation Society. Ugh. I was so embarrassed. It only served to remind me of just how much more we have to do, and that this is an ongoing process.

That's ok, I guess- I knew that going in.

We have only tried to improve this community- and dammit, we have done more for our community than most. We INVESTED in it. We LIVE here.

She may be rough on the edges, she may have a lot of work to do, but we built this house from the inside out, and I, for one, am proud of what we have accomplished so far.

I hope we get a few more folks like us in the neighborhood. Galt knows we could use someone new to borrow tools from!

Deep breath.
All is well.
Deep breath.
Back to work.

Stair Trim-- partial finale.

Well, it's been a while and I have been quite remiss on updating the blog. Lots has happened.
For one, we are still undecided as to whether our next endeavor should be an arc or not. There's two of us, the two cats, and then there's the 40 days and nights of rain we've been getting in the region.

Needless to say, it hasn't been much of a Spring, and any moment the sun pokes its head out, I try to get something planted in the garden before I sink into the mud.

The weeds are absolutely thriving. We're nearing an all out man v. weed war here.

The good news is that when it's not raining, I can yank out the 16' trim boards out of the house and into the yard so I can work on the trim for our lovely 1st floor stair trim.

I started planning this last year, but never got up the courage to tackle it. See previous head scratcher here.

I originally thought I would have to use some sort of a large compass to draw the uneven stair treads onto the 16' trim board, then cut it out. I even built a compass out of dowel rods and wing nut screws. Turns out that was an exercise in futility.

Who says I don't get any exercise any more, eh?

















Nah, I started out the old fashioned way.

I put it off for a year.

















I started taking measurements.. enough to realize that this wasn't going to work for me. None of the steps were even enough to even think of a template. Non starter.

So I decided just to make ONE step, then see how OFF it was from step to step. AT least that would give me a general idea of how much I needed to tweak the layout.

















After cutting out a general template that 'mostly' fit all of the steps, I nailed a16 footer to the wall to make sure it wouldn't move, then used the template, a straight edge and a level to mark the horizontal tread level and the nose of the step. Once I had these marks, I could adjust the template to get a pretty good generalization.

















We decided to have a 2" relief of the trim (measuring 2 inches in from the top edge at a 45* angle). This determined where the nose edge and tread marks were made.

Then the cutting.

















I cut out the steps rather gingerly. I'd rather cut away too little and have to pare the cuts down than to remove too much. (BTW, on one step I did cut away too much, but I've got a nifty trick to fix it.)

















So after the cuts were made - yes, I cut these in the dining room. Did I mention about the whole rain/arc thing?--

















There was one step that was just... well, WRONG. No matter of pushing, nudging or persuasion was going to work.

So, yay for Bondo!!! I measured the gap, mixed the Bondo, pressed it up against the form with a straight edge, and taped it in place while it cured. Once it was cured, I glued it in place, sanded it down and painted it.

You'd never know it if I didn't point it out.

















, so now everything's in place, but because we wanted that 2" relief on the top edge, we now have these triangular nooks/holes at the base of each stair. (you can sort of see this on the bottom step of the following picture.)

















Easy fix. Bought a sheet of 1/4" thick MDF, cut it into 4" strips, then routered slight bullnose edge onto each side of the 4" strips, then painted them white. Two coats, minimum.

When they dried, I made diagonal cuts back and forth so each triangle I cut was usable in the corners of the stair, with a long bullnosed hypotenuse.

N.B.: not all of the triangles were right angles. I started cutting them all the same and then realized how foolish that was. I used one right angled piece as a template, setting it in each step to check the fit, then cur a whole bunch of 92-96* angled triangles for the uneven steps.





















Then when it was time to nail everything in place, I cut a small square of MDF out of the trim board scraps, and placed the 1" cut square in the hole, then nailed the covers in place. Viola.

But, before that final step, there was the issue of how to cut the angles at the top of the stairs and the bottom.

I did a lot of research and never got a really good answer, so I made one up myself.

First of all, I had left a little room at the top of the 16' trim board to play with. I used a straight edge to extend a line from the top edge out past the end of the board. Then I pulled it out of the way and placed a trim board along the floor in the hallway where it would necessarily intersect with the stair trim.

I drew a line out from the top of that board until it intersected with the line from the trim. I then marked it with blue tape. I then drew a line with a straight edge from the TOP edge of the blue tape intersection top the bottom edge of the blue tape, and then extended the line down to the floor. That was my bisect line.

















Then I eyeballed what looked to be a good wedge size for a transition piece, and measured out equally from the bisect line, then drew a line from each measurement down to the center bisect line at the floor. I traced this on to a piece of paper, then transferred it to a piece of floor trim, cut it out and used THAT piece to draw my cuts on the floor trim board as well as the stair trim board.

















Then nail into place, caulk and paint.

Oh yeah, remove tape. Heh heh.

















At the bottom of the stairs, I took a slightly different approach, but used the same blue tape. Once the base of the stair trim was cut so that the long 16' board could fit into place, all I needed to do was figure out where the horizontal board would intersect, then cut both boards at the intersection. This time, no filler piece is needed.

















































This one was a lot easier than the top. But now it's done!!

















Oh cr@p--- now it's on to the second floor stair trim going up to the third floor.

It never ends, does it?