I am removing the 1st floor wall section of my stairs. The stairs were constructed with stringers under the treads, but a closed skirt board was attached. I have removed the walls surrounding the stairs and the old skirt board.
Should I add a false stringer mounted all the way at the ends of the new, longer, treads or should I build a small wall with different height top plates to effectively make a stringer but provides a nailing surface for drywall?
EDIT:
Sorry, I really asked by question poorly…
The stairs are supported by 3, strong, full length stringers. I will not be changing the construction of structural part of these stairs. The two outside stringers are right at the edge of the current tread.
Open stairs is exactly what I am doing, in fact I have already finished opening them… What I need to do is build a wall on either side of the outside stringers to support the last few inches of new, longer, tread as well as support new drywall. Note that that last 2' of the first floor wall, which previously enclosed the stairs, is still present.
My question is actually about the construction of this new wall. Should I basically just build a stair shaped wall? Should I install a false stringer to get the stair shape, or just make the stair shape from 2x4s? I want to be able to bring drywall right up to the bottom of the new treads.
Best Answer
There are 2 ways to do this, the first way is in essence just cutting the wall at the top of the skirt board and capping it off and setting the handrail on top of the cap that is finishing off the cut wall, sounds a bit crude, but essentially that describes what you will have.
The up side to this is you will not need to do a floor repair, depending on where your wall ends where the newel will be.
The other way to do it is by removing the wall entirely, repairing the floor, removing the treads and risers, and set longer ones with return nosings on either side. and re-support the stairs with a new walls under the existing carriages.
This is the most work, but will give the best result in my opinion.
Jan. 2, 2014 edit
Here is the work I did in 1989 that shows what I did.
This one shows the best example of the effect I was trying to explain. I do not have a shot that shows how the handrail goes past the ceiling, but with a little imagination you could picture what the rail would have to do if the stairs were much wider at the bottom.
Edit #2
I did a little calculating to help, if it may