Finally Clarvoiant

When I get home from work in the evening and time permits, I have been trying to do little bits of projects around the house. Even if I just go and organize an area or put some stuff away for a future project. It's the little steps that lead to the great accomplishment. Tonight, I decided to take a little peak into our back stairwell.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we have a back stairway that we do not use. Our remodel of a back screen porch into a closet rendered the stairway all but useless. There was no headroom in the stairway due to the floor of the closet. There is no headroom.

We surmised that since the stairway was there and the sun porch was there, they must have been at some time...useful. We further surmised that the original staircase had been much steeper to allow for head room in the area of the sun porch.

I decided it was time to find out. Now remember, in past projects, where we have done some surmising, we have found ourselves out surmised by reality. There was nothing to our conjecture and we were in fact, just plain wrong! Secret passage ways, covered up doors, a new route to India, none of them panned out.

So, I was not sure what to expect upon pulling up a tread or two on the back stairway.

The whole process went very easily. I used a carpet knife to cut and rip out a section of carpet on the stairs. I got my Enforcer Pry Bar and the treads came up easily.

And then.....there in the dark of the clearing dust...victory! AND corrective surmisement!

The pictures pretty much tell the story.You can see the lime green shag carpet on the old stairs. They had built an entire superstructure over the old staircase. Originally, when you opened the door upstairs to go down this stairway, your first step was a step down. The new staircase has a short landing at the top and then a less steep angle of steps.

I was able to crawl all the up the old stairs to the very top. It's a whole secret passage way, which is what I had been looking for in the first place.