This is my first ever stair building project and I’m carrying it out as a StairFile case with Ness’s support. At his request, in case any of it should ever prove helpful to anyone else, I’m carrying out the whole of the development correspondence as a topic in the Stair Building forum, so my posts are in the form of messages to Ness. Here goes with some background information:

1. What I’m building is a new staircase to give access to the converted loft-space (i.e. 2nd floor) of my existing house and to the second floor of the new side-extension to the house. The new staircase will be located above the house’s existing staircase from ground floor to first floor.
2. The rectangular intermediate landing is where you can turn right and go up two further steps into the extension, or turn left and go up 4 steps to the loft space. This can best be seen in the Sketchup file I sent to Ness previously. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to upload Sketchup or zip files here, so I’ve included three 2D views from the Sketchup file. The two steps into the extension do not have to be part of this staircase project. Incidentally, the slightly odd arrangement of those two steps is because the ends of the block-and-beam floor construction in the extension mean I  can only go half a brick depth into that wall.
3. The height to the landing is flexible, but the height to the extension floor, i.e. the height after the two steps off that landing is fixed at 2446mm. The height to the loft floor, i.e. the end of our 3rd flight, is fixed at 2836mm.
4. The wall adjacent to the second flight will be ‘stepped’ where it meets the stringer. This is a bit difficult to explain, but I’ll do my best. The result will be that the thickness of stringer visible on its upper edge will be approximately 25mm less than the thickness that is visible on its lower edge. The step in the wall is due to what was a bulge in the brickwork in the roof space of the house. Having straightened that wall, the new surface is 25mm proud of the old surface. Rather than re-plastering right down to ground floor level, I decided to ‘lose’ the difference at the intersect with the staircase. I presume the only bearing this will have on the stair construction is that the stringer will need to be extra thick (or doubled up). The dimension I use for the length of flight 1 in the attached StairDesigner file refers to the distance to the old wall. This step in the wall is shown in one of the attached photographs.
5. With regard to style, I very much like the style shown in another of the attached photographs, which is the Axxys Original range of stair parts.
   I like the newels, the hand rails, the spindles, the simplicity of the stringers – everything. And just like in this example, I would be carpeting the stairs and painting the stringers, so the timber can be pine and mdf/ply. I bow (deeply) to your experience regarding choice of material thickness and fixings.
6. The angles of the walls are as follows: 1st to 2nd flight, approx. 89.75 degrees
                                                      2nd to 3rd flight, approx. 90.85 degrees.
   I haven’t taken these angles into account in my attached StairDesigner file.
7. Please note that the newel between the 1st and 2nd flight (coloured red in the Sketchup file) cannot be extended down to ‘ground level’ since it lies above the ground floor stair. I’ve noted on the Sketchup file the width of the gap above the ground floor stair (990mm). This means that only the first 446mm of the 1st flight is above a solid base.
8. There is a small gap between the newel at the top of the 3rd flight and the adjacent partition wall. I’ve now indicated (in the Sketchup file) the width of the opening into the loft space, which is 837mm. Not sure what the tidiest way of dealing with this would be; the three obvious possibilities are a)  that I make the opening narrower, so that the newel abuts the wall, or b) we make the 3rd flight a little wider, again, so that the newel abuts the wall, or c) we make the 3rd flight narrower, so that a short handrail return can be inserted between the newel and the partition wall.
9. The stair angle needs to be 42 degrees of less. Not sure how strictly this will be checked; by my calculations we’re not going to do better than 42.5 degrees.

Well, I’m sure that’s more than enough for one post. I’ll submit further information about material sizes, bought-in part dimensions and available equipment shortly.

Best regards,

Mark Gleadhall

(note from editor: links below not found so removed)

2D Sketchup file 1: 

2D Sketchup file 2:

2D Sketchup file 3:

Axxys stairparts:

Photo 1, landing 1st floor:

Photo 2, location of intermediate landing:

Photo 3, view from extension towards loft:

Photo 4,  step in wall plastering: