Stairway To... Okay Not Heaven.

Just to the second floor.  But it's still a pretty cool staircase.

This is just a little post but I figured I thought so much about the stairs and where to put then and what to use that I ought to give them their own post.

I ended up going with the kit pieces except for the metal rod that goes inside the spacers.  Honestly I had no idea how to cut it and a wooden dowel worked just as well.

This was a lot harder than it looked.

Slide the spacers on and glue.  Slide the step on and glue.  Slide the spindle through the holes to the niche in the step.  And glue.  Lots of glue.

In between these steps make sure to keep the cats from pawing at the staircase.  This will be detrimental to the stability of said staircase and may prove counterproductive to the reason for the stairs in the first place.

Not so strangely keeping the cats away was the hardest part.

But we have a couple of in progress shots here.

And make sure you keep the center dowel straight.

I think after building this one mostly from the kit I'd be able to build one on my own.  But I'm glad I started with the kit. 

Not so strangely keeping it straight is the hardest part.

 Because I used the dowel instead of the brass center support the spacers wanted to shift.  So once I got the whole thing assembled I wedged it into place and made sure everything was straight.

Needless to say that took a little time but eventually it worked out.

Here we are after a layer of stain.

I thought about doing everything but the steps in white but ultimately I liked the look of the allover oak stain better.

I almost glued the whole darn thing in place without adding my railing.  Yes I know.  Impatience gets me no where.  But I remembered. Barely.

Can you see my railing?

The kit came with some white cord.  Which was okay.

But I picked up some ball chain at Joann's really cheap.  They were getting rid of a ton of paper crafting stuff and that's where I got a bunch of things I can use for the dollhouse. 


So I decided to use some dark brass chain.  It's a little darker than the brass on the ceiling fans, like people's hands have tarnished it walking up and down the stairs.

Here's a better picture.

I like how this looks.

One more shot. 

I'm getting a little better at picture taking.

Almost like we can walk up the stairs right?