How to Design & Build Stair Steps

Measure the wall from the floor to the doorway or landing that the top of the stair steps needs to reach to get the rise. Divide the measurement, in inches, by seven, which represents the average rise of a stair, and round the number up to get the number of stairs you should build into the staircase. Divide the number of stairs by the rise to get the actual rise for each stair.

Get the local building codes for steps in the type of building you want to build the steps from the local government office. Use graph paper to draw a scale blueprint of the stair steps with two to three boxes on the grid representing a foot, and draw the vertical line first. Use the angle for stairs as listed in the building codes to draw a slanted line from the top of the vertical line to determine the width of the staircase across the floor.

Draw the steps into the plan. Maintain the number of stairs that you figured for the staircase to maintain the roughly 7-inch rise and space the steps equally along the slanted line in the drawing to determine the location of each step.

Clear the space where you want to build the stair steps. Remove debris from the area by sweeping the floor, and clean the walls with a wet rag.

Cut two 2-by-12-inch wood boards to the length of the length of the stairway or the sloping section in the blueprint that you created. Place a stair gauge at the mark equivalent to the rise that you determined for each stair on one side of a carpenter’s level. On the other side of the carpenter’s square, place a stair gauge at the measurement that you figured for the width of each stair when you created your blueprint.

Start at one end of a wood board that you cut for the staircase and slide the “v” in the carpenter’s square onto the board until the gauges catch on the edge. Trace the outside edges of the square on the board. Line up the square with the end of the first mark, trace again and continue along the board until you have drawn a notch for each stair.

Use a handsaw to remove the marked sections of the board to create a notched support. Lay the first board onto the second board you cut for the staircase, trace the notches and cut the pieces from the second board as well.

Hold the stringers in place against the wall and floor and cut the bottom corner that touches the floor and top corner that touches the wall so that the ends of the stringers sit flush against the wall and floor. Bolt the stringers into place at the wall and floor roughly the same distance apart as the width that you want to make the stairs.

Cut 2-by-12 boards to a width slightly longer than the distance the separates the stringers to create stairs. Center each stair on over a notched section of the stringer, and use three to four screws to attach the board to each stringer. Finish stairs by painting or laying a floor covering, such as carpet, over them.