Thursday, September 22, 2011

Spiral Staircase on Huge Spruce Log

view more at www.dona-arch.com

The owner of our project in Juneau Alaska saved a huge spruce log to form the base of a spiral staircase in his new home.  This is one of those situations where experience really plays a role in making difficult things seem easy.  We designed a similar staircase YEARS ago for our client in Port Townsend Washington.  His staircase was a great focal point to his home.  So when our Alaska clients presented the idea, we were all ready on board. I remembered a magazine article about the details for fabricating and installing he treads and a quick trip to the library produced a copy of the article.  It was a bit embarrassing to realize that the article was written over 20 years ago!  (it seems like yesterday...)  This is one of the great things about our profession.  You just keep on learning, new concepts, but you also get to reuse valuable experiences too.
Here is the spruce log being stored, ready for use

The timber frame is then installed

The Owner Scott Jenkins Cuts off the top of the timber

The timber is ready for stair treads


We will be posting updates when we have photos of the finished stairs.

3 comments:

  1. Great pictures! I was looking up spiral staircase prices when I came across your post. There is more to making spiral staircases then I thought. I would love to have a spiral staircase in my house, I think they add elegance to a house. Thanks so much for sharing, I would love to see pictures of the finished project.

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    1. Glad you like the photos! This is a beautiful home. Our second spiral staircase in 20 years. The previous one was formed around a huge driftwood log!
      Go to: http://dona-arch.com/ProjectPages/Houses/Jenkins.html to see finished pictures.

      Steve

      (you may need to paste this link into your browser)

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  2. The spiral step has been round for centuries and makes a wonderful support to any dwelling. Log spirals are most often used as lesser steps when space is limited.
    Architecture design

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