Todd applied the 3rd and final coat of stinky urethane to our stairs. I snapped these photos then retreated to the bedroom to get away from the smell. Today is going to be pretty warm, so we opened all the awning windows to air out the place. See ya later fumes!
Now they are all installed. Actually they were installed twice. They went up the first time without being glued and then Todd heard a couple of squeaks that drove him crazy, so he pried them all down and reinstalled them with glue. He's happy now and will be even happier when the stairs are sanded and covered in about 4 coats of urethane.
This afternoon I ran down into our workshop to snap some photos of Todd and Willy working but unfortunately I missed out on the action and only caught the clean-up. Notice the dust spots. They've been working hard for the past 2 weeks getting the poplar boards ready for the trim. It's a slow process to plane down the boards and then join the edges but it will be well worth it in the end. They've got a pretty good size pile of 3" inch boards ready for me to prime. 
I started working on the pile on Saturday but didn't get too far before my back started hurting. These are the boards that will go around the doors and windows. 
Our stairs are almost complete. We were missing some of the detail pieces and Todd and Willy cut those with the router today. 
These are the cove molding pieces: 
The cove molding goes under the stair tread and provides structural support and also makes the stairs prettier. These are the quarter round pieces:
The quarter round fills the joint where the stair tread meets the riser. It's hard to visualize here but I'll try to step things up (hah!) and post some photos of the install and the finished stairs later this week.
Sorry for the weak posting this month. Too bad there isn't even a good excuse. We've had a busy couple of weeks building stairs and visiting IKEA to please the bank. We'll spare the lengthy details, but the bank wants us to have everything complete on our house before we can close out our construction loan. We followed everything on their list, but apparently it wasn't good enough. They are requiring us to have the following items installed: "hardwood" stairs (our soft poplar wood won't suffice), trim and base molding (yes, that's a tedious one), kitchen cabinets (I guess they didn't like the contact paper), and interior doors. Their list has something to do with "marketability", which in our minds is very subjective. What if you don't want kitchen cabinets and would rather shelves? Or what about carpet stairs instead of hardwood? Ho hum.
So we're tackling the list and making good progress. Luckily we had enough oak floor boards leftover to use to build the stairs. Willy and Todd worked hard over the weekend to get the treads and riser boards up. We're also scratching the kitchen cabinets off the list. We are still going to build our own someday but given that we needed something quick, we took measurements and ventured to IKEA. We sat down at one of their computer terminals amongst screaming kids and fumbled our way through designing our kitchen. We're pretty happy with the solution and were able to leave the store with the trucko'saurus loaded up with parts to put together. We're still waiting on the cabinet and drawer faces but it should come together pretty quick. We went with a butcher block countertop and dark gray/birch cabinets. Hopefully we'll be able to show you soon.
Now for some photos:
Here's a shot of the old stairs, or what's left of them. 
Todd and Willy work on installing boards for the landing.
Todd making some fine tuning adjustments with a pipe clamp. Nothing like a couple hundred pounds of pressure to make a stubborn oak board comply!
Damn, I need to shave! Just kidding. Those are Willy's legs.
And now for the almost finished stairs. We still need molding details and urethane but they're close.
While Willy and Todd were busy with the stairs, I kept myself occupied assembling the base cabinets. 
Oh, IKEA...we love you and all your little pieces! 
The first frowning illustration represents how I looked as we unloaded the trucko'saurus in a downpour. Rain and heavy cardboard boxes aren't the best of friends. And the second smiling illustration represents how I looked when I realized, after assembling everything, that nothing was permanently damaged.
And here's how things are looking so far...door and drawer faces to come.
We were finally able to bring the dishwasher up from the basement. I think we bought it 2 years ago.
Ahh...pull-out drawers...a thing of beauty and function.
Todd and Willy carefully cut out a hole for our undermount sink then routered the edge.
Willow got a "mini-me" dog toy from IKEA for being so patient. Too bad it isn't real. 
We're off to the Outer Banks on Friday for a week and we're looking forward to some R&R. Willow doesn't know it yet but she's in for a big treat. She loves riding waves and drinking mouthfuls of salt water. Stay tuned for photos.
We just found these photos from back in early December when we decided to tackle building our basement stairs. It was a bit tricky (and frustrating) figuring out the rise & run of the stringers to the landing, as well as getting everything to code. We managed to work through all the kinks and ended up with some pretty good looking stairs. The excel stair building program that we bought certainly helped!
Notice all the early, incorrect pencil lines :)
