The Dale C. Maley Family Web Site

My sister asked me to design and build some steps so she could display her 13 Christmas house decorations.

I decided to use standard 3/4" thick pine for both the steps, and the 2 stringers. You normally make stringers from 1.5" thick stock, but there is no need for this kind of strength........plus it adds unnecessary weight to move the shelves around.

I designed this in Google Sketchup.

Construction

A standard 1x12" is 11.25 inches wide.......not wide enough for the 15" wide steps needed for this project.  I could have glued up enough pine boards to get the 15" width, but then I would have to belt sand the joints to get them smooth (my planer only takes 12" max wide boards).

Lowes carried wide boards already glued up and sanded.  They are about 1/16 narrowed than 3/4" but that doesn't matter on a project like this.  The cost is close to the cost of buying the boards and gluing it up yourself.  I used the standard Lowes wide boards for this project.  They worked fine.

I added 2 small 45 degree triangles on the lower step, go give the assembly some lateral strength.  I also designed the legs so they can be easily slid in or out of a square pocket. I used Kreig pocket screws to make the square leg holders.  Removable legs make it easier to store the step unit, and it takes less storage space.