Installing the Spiral staircase

The hole where the Spiral Staircase goes....

You'll notice that we had to replace the old rickety "homemade ladder" with a nice industrial strength metal extension ladder... This has been how we accessed the media room for months... We are finally at the stage where we can install the Spiral Staircase (of course this entry is delayed as we did this 3 weeks ago.)...

The saga begins....

The parts for the spiral staircase.... SO MANY!!!

The Treads for the Spiral Staircase
The rails for the spiral staircase

the oak treads, and the casing for the handrail

The center support pole.. This has been laying in the garage since we started building the house and I'm surprised it's still straight and in one piece...

Installing each individual tread, spacer, riser, then repeat... tread, spacer, riser, repeat... The instructions suggested that we put 4 on, then stand the pole up and continue the process... Those instructions are SO SMART!!! Now I know why they suggested only 4... That thing is heavy to lift... Well, there was the little CONFUSION on Dana's part that he didn't need the SPACER at the starter plate, (which the INSTRUCTIONS said THREE TIMES to not forget to add the spacer after the starter plate) so after we had installed all the treads, we had to take them all off and add the little 1/4 inch spacer at the very bottom... and then start the process all over again...This time while the pole was already bolted into the floor... That was 20 feet of feeding the treads down the pole, but we survived...

A little crooked, but standing up straight in the hole... This is about 8 hours after we started the process...

This is actually the next day... some of our friends showed up and we wound up talking more than working, then we ordered a pizza around 8:30 pm, our first take out order at the new house... (Papa John's couldn't find our address in their mapquest search, because we aren't officially an address until we get the inspections finished)...

We left the insertion of the rails until we were fresher.... HMMM...

Here's a little clip of Dana actually installing the treads, just for fun...

Hope you enjoyed our first experience with installing a Spiral Staircase...

Love you guys.... Oh, BTW, we MIGHT get to move in this weekend.... I HOPE!!!