What I am talking about is something I refer to as a Damn Shame. When you cannot, for a myriad of reasons, save a beautiful detail. Be it time. Costs. Impracticality. A combination of all three.
Case in point: these stone steps.
They are a couple of hundred years old. Under all that dust, they are beautiful. The edges are worn from wear, they are softly rounded and carry the patina of all the farmers that ever carried provisions up to the hay loft.
And they cannot be saved.
Last spring, we had the stairs supported from underneath with iron girders so that we could save the stones. The problem, however, became obvious when we started doing the calculations for the floor heating upstairs. The floor upstairs would be about 7 inches higher than originally planned. And that seven inches threw every step off -- you can't arrive at the top without having a huge, insurmountable step to throw yourself over.
It's geometry. It's trigonometry. Whatever. I got mad at the architect at first, but then realized that she could not have known that we would decide on floor heating upstairs. It was a little bit of everyone's fault, this one. She didn't ask, I didn't think of it, and the steps were, as a result, cast in iron, a bit prematurely.
We can't jackhammer the steps out, because they are buried deep into the walls, left and right.
All we can do is leave the steps there as a foundation and build each single step up a bit to compensate for the higher floor.... and then cover the steps with another material.
I know, and now you know, what treasures lay buried under the tiles that will line the steps... tiles, by the way, that we saved from another part of the house. Beautiful, old, colorful tiles.
But still.
I cried an entire weekend away over this one. It's one thing when the practicalities don't go well. It's another to lose a piece of history, and to know that I played a role in the mistake. Nothing I can do now about it, and I am past it. I am not going to beat myself up too much, because what's the point, really?
It's just a Damn Shame, that's all.
10 comments:
This sounds so frustrating! And there must be a way... Isn't a normal stair tread 8 inches or so? Why is it not possible just to add another stair at the top? I wouldn't be able to give up.. there must be a way... A damn shame indeed...
I keep rewriting this comment to try to explain the problems, which are so crazy.
See the door right at the top of the steps? It goes out to the roof terrace. That door would have to be relocated to accommodate the additional step. If we just left the door there, kept the floor low around the door and did a riser around a small platform at the top of the step, you end up with a step that the brain does not register -- one that everyone would miss and trip over. Italy has enough badly placed steps. I have one myself in our kitchen, (also the result of floor heating and step/riser problems) and I cringe when people trip over it. I would be nervous as hell to have a blind step in a room.
To relocate the door is expensive, because electrical is already implanted where the door would be relocated to.
...and we can't compensate by changing the height of every riser just a little bit. THere are legal tolerances for stair risers. If you start messing with them, adding a little to each, you quickly find that the tolerances are there for a reason-- we played around with this and if the riser is too low, you trip. If it is too high, you miss it. SInce this is a public room, we have to stay within the tolerance, and it just does not work with the configuration of these steps.
:(
This is definitely one of the saddest parts of renovating, especially a centuries-old house; I'm sure you will think of some artistic way to honor the stairs...a framed photo comes to mind as a very simple way. In a weird way, it's nice that you can't jackhammer them...this way they really will still be a part of the house even if you can't see them.
My condolences :(
P.S. My word verification was "Stricara" Strinati, cara! :D
Now it's "meter." I hate talking about meters though...house restoration is nasty business!
Ok, call me crazy but...what about glass or plexiglass transparent stairs over the stones like they do when you walk through ruins? I don't know, could give it a sort of modern meets old feel (like a lot of your place). Then again I wouldn't have a clue what that would cost!
We could not do it to the whole stair case, Meg, because we are actually changing the whole pitch of the steps. Jessica my niece wrote me an email about doing this as well. It might be feasable on one step, using super thick tempered safety glass instead of a tile. I will have to find out the cost.
My bella Diana,
I faced several very similar issues in the restoration of our 1880s farmhouse. One of the "darn shames" was part our fault...and was thus the hardest one to accept! It was so very hard to think of every long-term consequence of every difficult decision over a three-four year period. Plus, the wear and tear of the years of building and all it entailed, took its terrible toll, leaving us even more vulnerable to mistakes.
You have done so much, so remarkably. Don't be too hard on yourself. You WILL get over it and you WILL refocus again on all the good things you have done. Feeling of frustration, defeat, regret were the hardest for me to handle during the restoration project...much more than putting up with the incredible mess or physical fatigue.
I share your feelings, I know how hard they are, and I know what a HUGE job restoration project like ours were/are.
An affectionate hug to a very special someone.
I'm sure you've run through every possible scenario.. but I need to know why they can't work. Why can't the door to the terrace either be smaller by the 7 inches, or, change the height above the door somehow by changing the roof there? There must be a way!
I like Michelle's point -- that they will still be there as the heart of the staircase. And Mary's words are comforting as well. I can't say anything any better but just sorry that this one is going this way.
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