Anyone can build a good, solid staircase. All it takes is a little attention to detail and the use of a few vital tools. As long as you have good instructions and you follow them closely, your stairs will be just as good as any professional's stairs. If your stairs are not built right someone could fall through and hurt themselves. That is not all either, they could trip if the angles are not right and fall all the way down. This is dangerous stuff, so build wisely!

Before you start building your new stairs you need to carefully measure the old ones. This is easy, just be sure to include measurements for the following:

Height of each stair

Width of each stair

Depth of each stair

Distance between the first step and the last step

Distance from the floor to the next level

Length, width and angle cut of the stringers

Go over these measurements several times to be on the safe side.

If the current staircase is a well built one then your new one will be that much easier to build. If not, you will have to take these design flaws into consideration to avoid making the same mistakes again.

It is important to know where to put the stringer cuts. Mark these carefully using a yardstick. This will help you with the entire stair building process. If your old stringers are still in good shape then feel free to reuse them. There is no reason to go to all the extra work of making new ones if you don't have to. If the stringers you have are good but you don't like the way they look and you want new ones then consider using the old as a template. This is the fastest and easiest way to get this part of the job done.

If you are worried that you may not be able to build the safest and best stairs then consider getting some help. There are hundreds of do it yourself books out there that will guide you through the entire process step by step. You can get these from bookstores online or offline as well as from your local public library. Even if the book is old it doesn't really matter because stair building has not really changed much over the years. Some of the tools have gotten a little fancier and more mechanized but that is about it. You will still be able to get plenty of great tips that you can put to use right away.