Stairway Details...

We are getting close to being finished with the building of our home, but things seem to continue dragging out...  My immediate goal is to get pass our final inspection and get our Certificate of Occupancy.  There are only a couple of details holding us back (as far as I know) -- the banister on the stairway, a few unfinished electrical outlets, and the vent pipe still needs to be put through the roof.  The outlets can be finished easily or just a blank plate put over them (until they can be done later), and the vent pipe won't take long to finish -- once I get up on the roof and cut a hole (finally got the hole saw to do this).

So over the weekend, I turned my attention to the stairway and the details associated with it.  It goes up into the attic, and there were no walls up there on the sides, so I needed to add some walls on both sides of the hole.  They are framed and drywalled on one side, so that should be ok.  Then, one side of the stairway was opened, and needed a handrail, and so I had to figure out exactly how I was going to put that up, satisfying the details of the code.  So, I now have most of that done -- not quite complete yet.  I need to install the newel at the bottom and finish the balusters on the side at the top -- most of them are on, but there is still a hole at the top.

I decided to take a 2x4, rip it down to a 2x2 (1.5x1.5 actually), and then use the router to round off the corners, and then use it as the banister.  That really worked great, and I have talked with a builder friend who actually suggested that I do this -- since this is just an attic stairway and not in the living area where a quality finished look is not really necessary.

Here are some pictures -- I am working on putting drywall in that storage room, but I mainly needed to get the drywall on the walls above the stairs.  The drywall looks a bit like patchwork because I'm having to fit it in behind the stairway, and the walls are 9' -- I don't have any more of the 54" pieces like they used in the house...