We are preparing for our next home improvement project: the basement. The plan is to clean it up and seal it so we can let the cats have their own playroom down there. Before any work gets done, the first thing we need to address are those stairs that have been dangerously hanging by one nail for the entire 6 years we’ve lived here.

Basic basement steps are easy enough to install. Prefab stringers can be purchased to make life easier. You can even find full staircase kits ready to go. For those, you would only need to measure ground floor to top landing and make sure it’s all level, plum and well supported.

Of course it’s never that simple for us. For some reason, we have the waste line running alongside our basement stairs. That’s why someone decided to build an unevenly supported staircase by moving right stringer in by oh, about six inches. Can’t figure out why they thought this would work, but then again we don’t get a lot of their “fixes” in this house.

So, what do you do when trying to install a stairway in a narrow area with a sewage pipe and crumbly plaster walls on either side? And no, moving the pipe is not something we want to do.

The floating staircase is the idea we’re leaning towards at the moment. The straight stairway above has a metal mono stringer running down the middle instead of the usual twin supports. This shouldn’t interfere with the weirdness on the sides and the one tread that hits the pipe can be cut shorter.

Here’s a narrow staircase. Kind of weird and not for us. But it beats a rope or fireman’s pole if you don’t have space.

Of course the worst part about this is the cost. A basic Home Depot set of DIY basement stairs should cost around a couple of hundred bucks. These fancy schmancy kits will run closer to two grand. I haven’t researched thoroughly yet, but I’m hoping we can just buy that mono stringer and cut our own treads. It will save some dough.

Kits:

Fast Stairs

Iron Shop

Mylen Stairs

Stairway Shop