Actually, R/R stands for "Rise Over Run."  Most of you probably remember studying this in Elementary school.  You go so far in the x-direction and then you go up so far in the y-direction.  Sounds simple, right?  Well, it did to me too till I tried making the stringers for our foyer stairs.

First, the local Inspectors come along and make you follow these things called 'building codes' that give you certain lengths and heights that you must stay within in order for your stairs to pass inspection. So, you have to try to find some way of calculating how many stairs you'll need to end up within the limits imposed by the building codes. After our first attempt fell several inches short, I decided it was time for a model - yes, we're doing model based stair development. The following picture contains our sketch of the stairs and some of our math to calculate the treads and risers.

With our new model in hand, Tyler and I started working on our second revision of the stringers. Before cutting them, we used the hypotenuse to make sure we'd marked the stringer out to the right length. All of this hard work eventually paid off and we were able to get the stairs in place. Tyler ended up getting stranded out of town one weekend due to a snow storm, so I finished cutting out the stringers and getting the strung up. The following pictures show the finished framing for the stairs.

With the new stairs in place, Tyler and I decided it was time to introduce the pups to them. Since we didn't have any railings up yet, we wanted to make sure we could trust the pups going up and down the stairs. As you can see from the following photos, the pups weren't too sure about the new stairs. And, I was looking pretty tired after spending all day putting them up.