Joie de Vivre

A modern, three-story staircase in blackened steel and western maple. We built this stair for “Joie de Vivre”, a home built by Brian Schmidt Builder for the 2015 NW Natural Street of Dreams.  The stair capitalizes on a strong modern industrial aesthetic: letting the natural beauty of the materials shine. All the handrail and treads are in western maple, handmade in our shop alongside the steel structural components. Because of the unique time constraints of this home, we had to be creative in shortening our standard lead time for a project of this scale. We took accurate site-measurements while the home was still in the rough stage, and gave the framers exact locations to add blocking for the stringers and wall-mount locations for the treads. This allowed us to mill the treads, and pre-weld all the steel components while roofing, plumbing, electrical, and drywall were happening on site. Before we mobilized for installation, we also did our signature in-house blackened patina on the structural steel and railing sections, and delivered all the treads and handrail to be pre-finished by the painter. When the stairwell was ready for us, we laid out our CNC-cut layout jigs on the floor and walls to accurately place all the stair components according to our design. Since we had pre-made all the components this allowed us to work quickly and have the staircase completed and ready for the show opening.